this is a complete uneducated guess from a relatively tech-illiterate guy, but could it contain mac-specific information about weird non-essential stuff like folder backgrounds and item placement on the no-grid view?
They’re Metadata specific for Macs.
If you download a third party compression tool they’ll probably have an option somewhere to exclude these from the zips but the default tool doesn’t Afaik.
HFS+ has a different features set than NTFS or ext4, Apple elect to store metadata that way.
I would imagine modern FS like ZFS or btrfs could benefit from doing something similar but nobody has chosen to implement something like that in that way.
A Copy on White file system that supports snapshots, supported mostly by
ZFS
Zetabyte File System
Copy on Write File System. Less flexible than BTRFS but generally more robust and stable. Better compression in my experience than BTRFS. Out of Kernel Linux support and native FreeBSD.
HFS+
what Mac uses, I have no clue about this. some Copy on Write stuff.
NTFS
Windows File System
From what I know, no compression or COW
In my experience less stable than ext4/ZFS but maybe it’s better nowadays.
Great summary, but I’ve to add that NTFS is WAY more stable than ext4 when it comes to hardware glitches and/or power failures. ZFS is obviously superior to both but overkill for most people, BTRFS should be a nice middle ground and now even NAS manufacturers like Synology are migrating ext4 into BTRFS.
Well that’s good to know because I had some terrible luck with it about a decade ago. Although I don’t think I would go back to windows, I just don’t need it for work anymore and it’s become far too complex.
I’ve also had pretty bad luck with BTRFS though, although it seems to have improved a lot in the past 3 years that I’ve been using it.
ZFS would be good but having to rebuild the kernel module is a pain in the ass because when it fails to build you’re unbootable (on root). I also don’t like how clones are dependant on parents, requires a lot of forethought when you’re trying to create a reproducible build on eg Gentoo.
Can someone explain why MacOS always seems to create _MACOSX folders in zips that we Linux/Windows users always delete anyway?
this is a complete uneducated guess from a relatively tech-illiterate guy, but could it contain mac-specific information about weird non-essential stuff like folder backgrounds and item placement on the no-grid view?
Correct. It contains filesystem metadata that’s not supported in the zip files “filesystem”.
Interesting. We have that in Linux too just not for every directory.
They’re Metadata specific for Macs.
If you download a third party compression tool they’ll probably have an option somewhere to exclude these from the zips but the default tool doesn’t Afaik.
Thanks! Hmm, never thought of looking at 7zip’s settings to see if it can autodelete/not unpack that stuff. I’ll see if I can find such a setting!
You can definitely check, but I would expect the option to exist when the archive is created rather than when it’s extracted
“Resource forks” IIRC, old stuff. Same for the .DS_Store file.
For just $12.99 you can disable this https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blueharvest/id739483376
Because Apple always gotta fuck with and “innovate” perfectly working shit
Windows’s built-in tool can make zips without fucking with shit AND the resulting zip works just fine across systems.
Mac though…Mac produced zips always ALWAYS give me issues when trying to unzip on a non-mac (ESPECIALLY Linux)
HFS+ has a different features set than NTFS or ext4, Apple elect to store metadata that way.
I would imagine modern FS like ZFS or btrfs could benefit from doing something similar but nobody has chosen to implement something like that in that way.
Yeah totally!
frantically searches for the meaning of all those abbreviations
I gotcha:
Great summary, but I’ve to add that NTFS is WAY more stable than ext4 when it comes to hardware glitches and/or power failures. ZFS is obviously superior to both but overkill for most people, BTRFS should be a nice middle ground and now even NAS manufacturers like Synology are migrating ext4 into BTRFS.
Well that’s good to know because I had some terrible luck with it about a decade ago. Although I don’t think I would go back to windows, I just don’t need it for work anymore and it’s become far too complex.
I’ve also had pretty bad luck with BTRFS though, although it seems to have improved a lot in the past 3 years that I’ve been using it.
ZFS would be good but having to rebuild the kernel module is a pain in the ass because when it fails to build you’re unbootable (on root). I also don’t like how clones are dependant on parents, requires a lot of forethought when you’re trying to create a reproducible build on eg Gentoo.
Thanks!