[Linux-disciples] Re: Rdiff-backup (fwd)

[Stephen R Laniel]

A coworker has a bunch of clients who run Mac OS X and
Windows machines, and he'd like to get them all backed up to
the same machine to which he backs up his Linux box. I
recommended rdiff-backup, but it seems to have problems with
Mac 9.x resource forks. He's currently using rsync, I
gather, along with a one-off script.

See his comments below. My question is: does anyone out
there have experience getting rdiff-backup to work with the
other OSes? I've noticed that Linux tools, if they're old
enough, tend to grow to encompass all kinds of other file
types or server schemes; I'd be surprised if rdiff-backup
were not fully compatible with MacOS and Windows. But this
guy seems fairly convinced that it's not.

> Looks awesome, but there are two problems I see:
>
> 1) I would have to compile it for OSX, and I don't think it would work 
> very easily.  A quick look at the docs shows it can be done, but you 
> have to both hack the makefile and install the fink / OpenDarwin 
> stuff.
>
> 2) The Windows version does not run under windows.  It requires 
> hacking the makefile significantly, as well as installing the cygwin 
> "extensions," also known as a complete linux VM.
>
> I don't think requiring users to make a significant change to their 
> environment is going to earn us any love from our customers, as cool 
> as this thing is.  Better to work with the tools at hand.



-- 
``Early in the century there was detectable optimism about
  the prospects for analysing 'the', but it faded.''
 -Jerry Fodor, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n20/fodo01_.html