Problems with Case-Sensitive HFS+ filesystems and OS X Tiger 10.4

Here's a Mac OS X gripe. I don't have many of them, so enjoy it while you can.

I recently had to reinstall Mac OS X, the first time ever after about four years of Mac use. That's impressive in itself, compared to Windows which I've been forced to reinstall many times (often losing information in the process). Anyway, I had to replace the hard drive on my Intel-based Macbook Pro because it died, and my two cloned backups worked just fine but for a few small problems. The failing hard drive appeared to have a small amount of corrupted data that was causing random crashes, so I bit the bullet and decided to reinstall instead of fix the disk (just in case).

Thinking I was smarter than I am, I changed the installer's default settings for the hard drive to an "manual upgrade." Instead of HFS+ Journaled (default), I opted for the more Unix-like HFS+ Case-sensitive Journaled filesystem. This one is apparently better with Spotlight searches and might be coming in OS X Leopard, 10.5. There are Google-found reports of problems using this filesystem on a boot partition when running OS X 10.3, but since I was running the newer 10.4, I thought everything would be fine.

In fact, there are problems using the HFS+ Case-sensitive Journaled filesystem on 10.4 too but I did not find them in advance. Even on 10.4.8, the latest version as of this writing (10.4.9 on the developer's plate). The problems aren't with any of the native Apple apps I'm using, or even with 95% of the 3rd party apps out there. But some applications (particularly older ones that use Rosetta, the translation engine for PowerPC apps) have problems. The big ones I've found that don't work on a case-sensitive filesystem for the Mac:

• Microsoft Office 2004 (PowerPC;Rosetta)
• Macromedia Fireworks/Dreamweaver 8 (PowerPC;Rosetta)
• Big Bang Boardgames (Universal)
• Textmate's installer image (Universal)

Everything else seems to run fine. Darwin BSD works the same. I found a support document from Macromedia that confirms Fireworks 8 and Dreamweaver 8 won't run on Case-Sensitive HFS+ filesystems, even on OS X 10.4. I imagine that most of the other above applications have never been tested on a case-sensitive boot partition... I couldn't find any information on the web about them not working. So, I decided to write this page. I notified Big Bang Boardgames, and should do the same to Textmate's soon. Macromedia already had a bulletin or two about the problem, and Microsoft had no documents on it whatsoever. Too bad, as it forced me to NeoOffice and Scrivener and Abiword and others, searching for the perfect word processor. I use all of them now, along with Textmate (an excellent commercial editor on OS X).

I've decided to backup & reinstall a second time now, to fix these problems. This time I'll be using the standard filesystem. I like using Microsoft Word, I must admit... and Fireworks too. But they are both much too expensive, when better less-expensive alternatives exist and are poised to replace them. Now, at least there's some decent alternatives to Microsoft Word, formerlly my favorite word processor. Maybe the Universal version will simplify things enough.

If you have any information to share with me on overcoming these case-sensitive filesytems issues with HFS+ on OS X Tiger (10.4.x), please let me know. Of course, OS X Leopard (10.5) is coming soon, which may fix these problems for all applications... I hear rumors of a new filesystem, even faster Spotlight, faster loading, snap booting (I wish! Imagine ROMs again!), super Widgets, Spaces, Resolution Independence, 3D Integration of the Desktop, ... and best of all, many of my friends now have one. :) Interoperability is key, open standards on paid, proprietary systems that don't suck. Everyone pays for software in one form or another, whether the license is free or not.

Printed 25-Feb-2007
Updated 28-Feb-2007

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