Re: [GNU Autoconf 2.69] OSX autotools: `aclocal.m4' not being output by `autom4te'

[Gary V. Vaughan]

On Jun 27, 2014, at 8:55 AM, Jeff Sheen <address@hidden> wrote:

>> On 27 Jun 2014, at 02:39, Bob Friesenhahn <address@hidden> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Thu, 26 Jun 2014, Jeff Sheen wrote:
>>> 
>>> Is it expected behaviour that GNU Autotools are incompatible with some file 
>>> systems natively supported by the OS?
>> 
>> FAT32 provides only one second file timestamp resolution.  That can cause 
>> significant problems for modern computers which often perform several steps 
>> in one second.  A test to see if a file has changed may fail to obtain the 
>> correct results.
>> 
> N.B. despite FAT's age, and subsequent flaws, it is still the de facto 
> standard for portable drives. 
> 
> This is because FAT is the only file system fully supported by all modern 
> operating systems.
> 
> I run a multi-OS development environment, with a spread of tools across OSX 
> and Windows. I wanted to migrate away from using FAT on my shared data 
> partition, but found no other viable options. The process of testing 
> alternative file systems was extensive, and meticulous. I spent weeks trying 
> out NTFS and HFS partitions, with different combinations of drivers in both 
> operating systems.
> 
> Ultimately, it is partisan nonsense that the only file system that can be 
> agreed on is FAT, but that is the reality.


  Patient: It hurts when I do this.
  Doctor:  Well, then don't do that!

There really are many, many more elegant solutions than sharing files using FAT!

 - use a NAS with a proper filesystem;
 - mount a proper filesystem to one server and then run NFS on that server so 
that client machines can access it;
 - use SMB on windows and Samba on Unix to cross mount a NTFS share;
 - sychronize shared files using DropBox or Box.net or OwnCloud etc;
 - replicate the filesystem across architectures and synchronize with rsync or 
git or mercurial or bzr;
 - create a TrueCrypt volume if you're moving a single physical drive between 
machines;
 - or a PKZip volume which also preserves metadata far better than FAT;

And that's just the ones I could brainstorm in the time it took me to type this 
up, there are surely many others.

HTH,
-- 
Gary V. Vaughan (gary AT gnu DOT org)

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