Fedora/Linux as a USB Drive

[Les Mikesell]

max wrote:
> Adalbert Prokop wrote:
>> max wrote on Sunday 13 January 2008:
>>
>>  
>>> It sounds like what he wants is to connect two computers together with
>>> a cable and have them treat one another like flash drives.
>>>     
>>
>> I'm aware of it. :) And in my last paragraph I tried to point out how 
>> difficult that would be even in theory. Of course it is theoretically 
>> possible, but I never heard of something like this. YMMV. :)
>>
>>   
> I don't see why it should be difficult but I have to admit I have not 
> tried such a thing. What's the difference between mounting an IPOD via 
> usb and another computer?

The IPOD knows how to act as a usb mass-storage device and the computer 
doesn't.

> I don't see that it is that different. The 
> computers have the advantage of knowing each others language, so to 
> speak, I could see the benefit in communicating this way between 
> machines and sharing a single network interface or simply plugging to 
> machines together to distribute a compiling job.

There are two problems - one is that usb is a host/target interface 
(unlike firewire) so you can't connect computer<->computer directly 
without some intermediate electronics.  The other is that you need 
appropriate software to act as a target. The cables that look like back 
to back usb-ethernet adapters work around both of these issues.

By contrast, firewire does work host<->host and Mac computers always 
have firewire-target software in their firmware so if you boot while 
holding a certain key combination, another connected machine will see it 
as a firewire drive.  And OS X has always included 'migration assistant' 
software so when you get a new machine, you just firewire-connect your 
previous one and it will automatically pull over your existing users, 
data and applications for you.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com