tristonej wrote:
I don't quite understand why people buying non-Apple devices should not expect OSX to work with them
Because Apple has no control over 3rd parties. They can do what they want. If Apple publishes a new authentication mechanism in 2002, the 3rd party doesn't have to implement it. That isn't Apple's fault. If they do get around to supporting it in 2009 and then some 4th party doesn't bother to use the 2009 code in 2011, Apple still can't do anything about that. If anyone else wants to advertise, and support, Time Machine compatibility, they are welcome to do that. They definitely have the advertising part down, the support, not so much.
There is a time when apple only worked with apple but that aparently was not sustainable. And that's why now Apple is embracing smb
Apple's goal is to choose the best solution for its customers. Sometimes that is a proprietary connection or protocol and sometimes it is something industry standard. In all cases, there has to be some cut off for testing and support. That is why Apple eventually stops supporting its own hardware and technologies at a certain point. That is also why Apple will support SMB as deployed by Microsoft but isn't going to waste much time on home-built Linux servers.
(it's said even samba was used shortly on OSX, not quite sure) and allow users to install windows on macs. Even OSX itselt is based on FreeBSD and uses quite a lot of open source components.
Apple uses a lot of open source software. Samba was one of those projects. Unfortunately, the people that made those products didn't want Apple using them so they changed the licensing to prohibit Apple (and pretty much only Apple) from using their source code. That is why some of the open source packages in OS X are stuck in a 2007 version. That is also why Apple abandonned Samba and wrote its own SMB implementation.
OS X is not based on FreeBSD. It has a BSD-flavoured POSIX layer, but it is a distinct operating system at its core.
IMHO there is no magic in throwing money at propiretary hardware/software or praying to Steve Jobs. If something is not working, it must be that there is a bug in the code or the design. And neither OSX nor Macs are built by God, which means they are bugged as other software/hardware.
I'm confused. When did anyone say anything about praying to Steve Jobs or divine technology? You asked about using Linux as a Time Machine server. I suggested you avoid that if you value your data. I also asked why you would want to keep running Linux now that you have a Mac. A Mac can do anything Linux can do with a fraction of the effort.
The answer is simple, Macs can not do what I want.
Which is?
Withe a standard mATX case I can have quite a few 3.5" drive bays while there is only one 2.5" in a Mac mini. And with Ubuntu/Debian, getting/updating the software or the system is quite easy, just one or a few lines of apt commands, not quite possible with OSX.
That's certainly true. OS X updates itself without having to run any apt commands.
If you must compile something from the source to get a Linux running then something must be seriously wrong.
My thoughts exactly. But perhaps you didn't follow me entirely. Apt, yum, etc don't have everything one needs to setup something as fancy as, I don't know, a web server. While I did have to compile a number of things from source, I had to actually edit the source a couple of times as well.
The best thing I love about Linux is openess. You can customize almost everything and change it whatever way you want. With Mac, for example the 2013 Retina MBP I just bought, it's not even possible to change the power button behavior, which is very annoying.
Then why did you buy a Mac? That's no big secret. Some people like not have to configure everything just to get it running. I have other things to do than edit config files.
Back to my original question. I think the problem is not quite with compatibility of Bonjor but rather whether OSX can show this or not. Imagine you have a smb share and afp share on the same host, with the same name, how would OSX display it? And which icon will OSX use to display the host? I can not think of the answer so if you know please tell me.
OS X will just display it like it display any server. One of your links event has instructions on how to pick the icon you want to fake. If you are running both services then I am not sure which one it would try to connect with. Neither of your services are native, not matter how much they try to fake it. If you wanted a specific service you would have to manually use the correct protocol in Finder > Go > Connect to Server. However, bot of those links were posted before Mavericks. Obviously they don't work anymore. It's Linux. It's open. Right? So fix it and post it on your own blog. I do not know what modifications you would have to make to either Samba or Netatalk to make them work with Mavericks.
If all you need is to allow your wife to connect to one specific protocol, then manually connect to that service, saving your password in the keychain, and create an alias by Command-option dragging the server to some other folder. Then, she can just double-click on the alias to connect to the network.
Now, if you really want to be clever, you can setup an automount to that service instead. Then the server will be mounted and unmounted as needed.