Oh no! More boring computer problems! Oh no!

ssh -X user@host "VARIABLE_THERE=\"$VARIABLE_HERE\" bash -il"

i have a mac. i also have a linksys nslu2, and a lacie external drive. the linksys has formatted the lacie to ext3, and i mount the drive remotely and it appears as a locally connected drive. so, for, all good.

the thing is, i want to be able to do this in the terminal window. but it wont do it. something about an 'unknown or special file system'. what should i do, in the terminal to be able to mount this? (yes, i know i could just do it in finder, but i want to know why this wont work).

is it something to do with hfs and ext3? i dont know much about this, and ive tried to work it out, but i dont really get it

Try running the mount command from the terminal, without any options at all, when the drive is mounted in the Finder. That should just list all mounted drives, and their filesystem types, which should be a clue as to what options you need to pass to the mount command to mount it manually.

//WORKGROUP;music@LACIE/MUSIC on /Volumes/WORKGROUP;LACIE (nodev, nosuid, mounted by charltonlido)

(xpost)

why do you need remote gui appz

However, the bit I'd be expecting that I can't see there is the most important bit: the filesystem type. On the other hand, the UNC-style hostname format makes me think it might be connecting using SMB (the Windows filesharing protocol).

Unless there is some dependency between the programs (like one has to be installed before you can install the other) then I think it's fine to wait and reboot after installing everything.

1) "Jon"
2) Are you a CS department in 1989?

So your point isn't that X11 apps are rubbish - it's that we shouldn't be using GUI apps remotely at all? Why not? You may as well say: why use a GUI at all? You might not have noticed, but running remote GUI apps is one of the fundamental points of X's design.

Unless there is some dependency between the programs (like one has to be installed before you can install the other) then I think it's fine to wait and reboot after installing everything.

Yes, I often do this; it's nearly always fine.

(one thing I hate: installer programs that force a reboot and make it very hard to stop it happening. Logitech, particularly, have a habit of doing this)

Again, why do you need ANY GUI apps?

maybe i should take up some kind of outdoor pursuit instead, like tennis

Sorry, I can't help you on that one.

porn

Good point.

A friend of mine kept a roll of "ASCII"-art porn in his desk drawer for thirty years. It was a telex print test file that a telex engineer had given him just after he'd started, when he was a teenager.

(it wasn't actually ASCII art, because Telexes - ones on the British telex system, anyway - weren't ASCII; they used 5-bit Baudot code)

Running gui apps remotely (through x11, citrix or whatever) has the potential to reduce our software licencing costs significantly. We only need 1 licence of loads of infrequently used but important apps to support all the users who need to use them. Plus we can concentrate all of the computing power in one place, office desktops are over specced for the use they are put to. We reckon we can service our productivity needs with two dual xeon servers, we need more power we upgrade or add to the servers, not to the desks.

There are an awful lot of graphical programs - mostly Windows ones - that I have to control remotely; to avoid going through to the server room, or to avoid a 50-mile drive. I wish there was a more flexible way to control remote applications on Windows, rather than using one of those entire-desktop mechanisms.

i'll ask it on that machints site tomorrow, i had thought this mounting business would be easy, i have to admit.

perhaps, it would be better if i went to bed

(many xposts)

It's the Windows filesharing protocol.

EXCEPT IF YOU USE STUPID APPS

X11 is a bitch

thing is, if i mount my mp3 player, like this

diskutil mount /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/JUKEBOX

it works fine, but the same syntax for the lacie, doesnt

diskutil mount //WORKGROUP;music@LACIE/MUSIC /Volumes/WORKGROUP;LACIE

diskutil mount //WORKGROUP;music@LACIE/MUSIC /Volumes/MUSIC

its all this workgroup business, that seems to be confusing things, well, confusing me

I take it that the hostname is "LACIE", the workgroup/domain is "WORKGROUP" and the username is "music". In that case, if we were talking the Linux version of mount, the command would be:

mount -t smbfs -o "username=WORKGROUP/music" //LACIE/MUSIC /Volumes/MUSIC

i try this

$ mount -t smbfs //LACIE/MUSIC /Volumes/MUSIC

it asks me for a password, which i give, then it gives me

mount_smbfs: mount error: /Volumes/MUSIC: syserr = Resource busy

Try putting -o "username=[...]" after the -t smbfs option.

Does 'man mount' have a section for smb/cifs-specific options? Is there a separate 'smbmount' command with its own manual page?

i have to make the directory first, it seems. is this really right?

so, it goes

mkdir /Volumes/MUSIC

mount -t smbfs //LACIE/MUSIC /Volumes/MUSIC

and it mounts:)

Yes. You only have to do it once, of course.

If you put files in the directory when the remote disk isn't mounted, they will be inaccessible when it is.