Re: Unix CVS on a VFAT filesystem

[Todd Denniston]

Todd Denniston wrote:
> Scott Gifford wrote:
> > I use CVS for development on my Linux laptop.
> >
> > There's some software that I work on that is cross-platform.  I like
> > to keep the source for that software in a VFAT partition, so it's
> > accessible from both Linux and Windows.
> >
> > However, when I do a CVS pull from Linux onto the VFAT filesystem, I
> > get tons of errors:
<snip>

> > Does anybody have advice for making this work?
> >
> > Thanks!
>
> A trick I used when compiling on a MS system (with no network) was:
> checkout the project in /tmp (or anywhere else you have write privs and 
> is a Unix file system).
> use zip to make an archive of the sandbox.
> put the zip on the VFAT file system and take it to the MS system.
> use winzip to unzip the archive onto the VFAT file system which is 
> shared between MS and Linux.
> use the archive with both MS and CVS on Linux, for me it worked well.
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I meant sandbox, not archive. You do NOT need to re-archive before going back 
to Linux. Once the sandbox has been unziped it was just used on both OSs.

> The base of the problem is that the VFAT handling on Linux (circa 
> 2.4.20) will take an ALL_CAPS dir name and when it puts it on VFAT it 
> saves it as all_caps, if it is Mixed_CaPs Linux will store it as 
> Mixed_CaPs in the File Allocation Table.   when winzip unzips it on MS, 
> the CAPS are preserved and CVS (under Linux on the VFAT file system) is 
> happy. [This is one of those places I have a minor nit with the Linux 
> kernel, it SHOULD save what it is given, but deal with lookups in the 
> current case insensitive way.]
>
> Oh and I was doing only small edits on the MS box, and the rest on Linux 
> with all edits taking place on the VFAT media. For me it worked well, YMMV.
> Although this work was done using Linux circa 2.4.20, it looks like 
> Linux 2.6.17 still does the same thing.
>
> Good luck.


--
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter