Month: August 2012

Hidden keys and missing functions in Mac OS X

There are some things you might not know when you are new to OS X. This should be a list of things I am used to use in other operating systems like Windows and Linux but which are hidden in or not built-in in OS X.

  1. [CTRL]–>[CMD]: a lot of commands you are used to know in Windows and Linux do work in OS X with the [CMD] Key. If you are using the shell it is still the [CTRL] key.
  2. The Backslash [ALT]+[SHIFT]+[7]: If you need to type in a backslash ” into your console to escape the spaces or you just want to type this character into windows programs (over Remote Desktop for example)
  3. The Pipe [ALT]+[7]: Nearly same as the Backslash. Needed for the terminal to pipe command outputs to other commands.
  4. Delete [CMD]+[BACKSPACE]: If you want to move a file to the trash bin in Finder. Apparently it does not work for text.
  5. Changing the read-only status of a usb-drive closes the Finder (not so in Win)
  6. [CTRL]+[X]: In Windows and Linux you are able to cut and paste files through your file managers. But if you like to do so in OS Thanks to user mischnic who posted how it works under OSX: copy as normal & paste in with [ALT] [CMD][V]
  7. Rightclick: Make a click with two fingers. Dont have your fingers too close together otherwise they will be recognised as one finger.
  8. The Tilde ~ [ALT]+[N]: Used for navigating to your homefolder in Linux

I will write more depending on my work-experience with Mac OS X.

Make and format partitions on Linux

To format a drive with 1 or more partitions you need to

  • Make partitions on your drive
  • Format the partitions with your desired partition type

Make partitions

List drives with

fdisk -l

select your device you want to make your partitions (the size is a good indicator)

fdisk /dev/sdc
  • Press ‘m’ to have an overview of all the commands
  • Press ‘p’ to delete any unwanted partitions. To make sure you delete the right ones look at the partition numbers.
  • Press ‘n’ for a new partition.
  • Press ‘p’ for a primary partition. (A disk can have 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partitions and a extended partition. The extended partion is needed for any number of logical partitions or drives. Wiki-Link)
  • Press ‘1’ to select the first partition to be written
  • Type in +size{K,M,G} which is the size of your partition and looks like “+100M” . Do not forget the leading ‘+’
  • Press ‘p’ to see if your partition is planned to be written.
  • Press ‘a’ to make your partition bootable. Select 1 as your partition to be bootable.
  • Press ‘n’ to create another partition and hit enter to allocate the remaining space.
  • Press ‘w’ to write your partitions and exit fdisk.

Link for more partition options: click

Formatting the partitions

  • mkfs.ext2 /dev/sdc1 creates an ext2 partition on your first partition.
  • mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc2 creates an ext4 partition on your second partition.

More information can be found here: click