comment

2 files changed, 31 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/doc/bugs/OSX_case_insensitive_filesystem/comment_1_2e81165ac03e1d0566c81016e7728ee6._comment b/doc/bugs/OSX_case_insensitive_filesystem/comment_1_2e81165ac03e1d0566c81016e7728ee6._comment
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..01f355ec1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/bugs/OSX_case_insensitive_filesystem/comment_1_2e81165ac03e1d0566c81016e7728ee6._comment
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+[[!comment format=mdwn
+ username="joey"
+ subject="""comment 1"""
+ date="2016-04-20T18:14:25Z"
+ content="""
+So the directory structure got lower cased when you copied it from OSX to
+linux. OSX remembered a lower-case name for the J4 directory, for example,
+and propigated that over to linux.
+
+Unfortunately, git-annex is stuck using mixed case hash directories for
+backwards compatability reasons. Changing to all lower-case hash
+directories would need every git-annex repo to be converted; would
+invalidate all old tags and branches and history in the repos, etc.
+This is discussed in [[design/new_repo_versions]].
+
+It's actually possible to make brand-new git-annex repos use all lower case
+hash directories today, by setting `git config annex.tune.objecthashlower true`
+before you run `git annex init` for the first time. 
+
+If you know you will need to move a repository between case-insensative and
+case-sensative filesystems, you could use that configuration. But that
+would be very forward looking, and instead users are just going to stumble
+over the mixed case directories from time to time.
+
+What I'd recommend you do is, move the repository back to OSX, and then
+make a clone of it on the linux system, and use `git annex move --all
+--from origin` to move all the annexed file contents over from OSX to
+linux. This method avoids the problem entirely.
+"""]]
diff --git a/doc/design/new_repo_versions.mdwn b/doc/design/new_repo_versions.mdwn
index a42b52b1a..97bf2c0a7 100644
--- a/doc/design/new_repo_versions.mdwn
+++ b/doc/design/new_repo_versions.mdwn
@@ -43,7 +43,8 @@ Possible reasons to make changes:
 
   The mixed case hash directories have caused trouble on case-insensative
   filesystems, although that has mostly been papered over to avoid
-  problems.
+  problems. One remaining problem users can stuble on occurs
+  when [[moving a repository from OSX to Linux|bugs/OSX_case_insensitive_filesystem]].
 
 * The hash directories, and also the per-key directories
   can slow down using a repository on a disk (both SSD and spinning).