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I need an operating system for ARMv6 (Raspberry Pi) that can reliably mount HFS+ Journaled as read/write, with volume sizes up to 16TB.

I've not been able to find details on how stable HFS+ Journaled is in the latest versions of the Linux Kernel.

According to a possibly outdated Wikipedia article, there are several issues with HFS+ Journaled in Linux but work is underway to resolve this:

"As of February 2011, work is in progress to lift this restriction" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HFS_Plus&oldid=549625057#Linux

I've also looked into using Darwin or NetBSD as Apple uses these so hoped there would be an official driver, but no luck:

  • I can't find a way to compile Darwin for the Raspberry Pi as Apple haven't released the source code for ARM, and http://sourceforge.net/projects/darwin-arm/ seems to have been removed
  • As far as I can tell, Apple haven't released the NetBSD HFS+ drivers used on the Apple Airport

Can anyone answer

  1. Are the stability issues of HFS+ in Linux fixed? (and how I can track this?)
  2. If it's still unstable, can anyone recommend a stable alternative?
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Perhaps of note is this conversation on the linux-fsdevel list, where someone is looking at getting Netgear's HFS+ code working with the Linux kernel - don't think this was resolved though. spinics.net/lists/linux-fsdevel/msg57099.html –  penx Apr 23 '13 at 13:38
I have only seen read/write with HFS+ in linux if Journaling is disabled (reliably)... Why are you tied to using HFS+ with linux instead of a traditional linux formatting (or at least a system that has had long tested stability with linux)? –  nerdwaller Apr 23 '13 at 13:55
1. I have an existing large partition that would be a lot of work to migrate (partly because I don't have a second device with that much space to backup), 2. because I want to be able to swap the device between my Mac and the Raspberry Pi in the future –  penx Apr 23 '13 at 14:02
This doesn't seem to be suited for Server Fault since it's missing the professional workplace context. –  slhck May 13 '13 at 14:19

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