Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Some grousing: I've been experiencing loss of files and directories

I started working on a directory heavily, to aggregate and organize projects into folders, containing various files, mainly PDFs, images, and random other files, including drafts and "sweeps" related to some of the projects. I have some duplicates, for some of the projects; but with all of the work I've put in over the past few weeks, many files have been lost forever. It is my intention to document here any information relevant to this and other recent glitches or losses of data. I am convinced that MacOS is a scourge. I dropped around 1500.00 on a MacBook Pro, M2, 14", earlier this year. I have long avoided Macs; it was my hoep that I would be able to gain some advantages to my work. But I have lost,in aggregate, probably jmore than I have gained. Problems begin to crop up in regard to copying or syncing directory trees between the mac and the Linux box. - A suite of unresolved problems around the case-insensitive file system of the MacOS. - Dropbox sync issues. This has become a serious problem. I think either I have to completely quit MacOS or figure out a way to convert my data all to a filesystem that is case-sensitive, on the Mac. A plethora of small, hidden files now pollute my directories. Since I have lost files on the Linux Desktop, one obvious way to re-connect with many, or some, of those files has been to tar up an entire directory and copy it via ssh to my desktop. Thi does work, but this is where I introduced a massive number of these invisible files onto the GNU/Linux system. Apple's amazing Finder application is one of the culprits, if not the main one. These tiny files, according to one source in an online forum in which a problem, similar to mine, was discussed stated that these files cause directories to be unseen on other operating systems, possibly Windows. I have no way, yet, of finding out whether this has happened to my system; and, anyway, I have reconstructed some of the folders (directories) on my Linux desktop, which means I have commited mayhem on the filesystem as it existed previous to the apparent deletion of important directories. I have entertained the possibility that my incompetence has conspired with a new console based file manager, yazi, that i have come to depend on as I sorted---and contiue to sort---files into topical higher level folders/directories. Fumble fingers. GUI file managers like nautilus have given me fits in the past. Getting better.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a beacon

I just stumbled upon a statement on the website of the FSF ( fsf.org ) about the appointment of three new board members of the organisation....