Samba server and MacOS client

In order to setup a samba server, you can follow the RaspberryPi guide for it.

Make sure to add permissions to the shared folder on the server, so that the SMB daemon will have permissions to write on it.

In addition, I found that when mounting the share on a MacOS computer, there were weird errors about files being in use and the like. The problem is that MacOS Finder adds a special .DS_Store file to every folder and it produced a conflict when updating the contents of the file.

In order to solve it, just add this to your share:

veto files = /._*/.DS_Store/.Trashes/.TemporaryItems/

delete veto files = yes

The second line allows vetoed files to be deleted. Otherwise, already existing vetoed files would be stuck on the drive. (Note that “._*” prevents HFS+/APFS extended attributes from being stored on the SMB drive.)

From now on, .DS_Store and other conflicting files will not be created on the server.

Firmware update of AZGTi mount on Catalina

Skywatcher AZGTi mount is a light mount to use for astronomy. In order to use it with an equatorial wedge, you need to update the firmware. The firmware update program is only available as a Windows application.

There are some forums that describe how to run the firmware update using any flavour of wine.

Building on them I created this guide.

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