3 ms·

> If I stick a USB cable between my phone and Linux laptop, I can see the Android files on my laptop. I can open them, move them around, etc. On a Mac I need to

by hk1337 5y ago

> If I stick a USB cable between my phone and Linux laptop, I can see the Android files on my laptop. I can open them, move them around, etc. On a Mac I need to install some shonky 3rd party software which rarely works. You didn’t used to have to do that in macOS? I remember plugging in my android phone and it mounting my memory card. Is OP referring to accessing something else? > Mount an SSH or NFS drive > In Ubuntu, I get a nice little GUI for picking network shares. Impossible on Mac. I’m a little curious what the difference is between macOS and Linux here. There’s definitely a lot of legitimate points here and a few questions on others.

Haydos585x2 5y ago
They're referring to Android File Transfer, which I agree is a shoddy piece of third party software.
- hk1337 5y ago
  Kind of like the app you had to use to side load apps and do android development back when it first started?
Chernobog 5y ago
The keyword here is "MTP device". Some phones mount as mass storage device and works out of the box, but MTP requires extra software/drivers.
- hk1337 5y ago
  What’s the difference? Do you get full access to the phone file system when it’s mounted as a MTP device?
  - deaddodo 5y ago
    Mass Storage devices are attached as block devices. MTP devices are attached as file devices. As long as the OS understands the filesystem on a block device, it can mount it. For file devices, it needs to speak the protocol (in this case MTP). MTP is similar to how Apple handles attaching of its devices, just a different protocol. Mass devices can be easily corrupted and have to be unmounted from the current device. MTP can stay mounted and accessible by the mounting OS and source device simultaneously and are much more difficult to corrupt. It also allows the host device more security and control over what the guest can do.
  - Liquid_Fire 5y ago
    Older versions of Android used to allow mounting as a mass storage device, but there are several problems with this: - You can't allow apps on the phone access to the filesystem at the same time as it is mounted as a mass storage device (because you may corrupt the FS). - It doesn't work with full-disk encryption used by newer Android versions, because your computer doesn't have the key (and the key is probably stored somewhere in the TPM of your phone, encrypted by your password). - It requires the computer to support the FS used by the phone, which means necessarily using something that Windows/macOS supports (which mostly limits it to FAT/exFAT/NTFS) So starting from Android... 5 or so? you can't mount as mass storage anymore. This probably consists of 99.5%+ of currently functioning Android phones.
zekica 5y ago
This refers to MTP (Media Transfer Protocol). Very old Android devices (with Android 2.x) used to pass-thru the SD card to the host as a USB Storage Device, but that solution was clunky as it requires detaching the SD card from the phone itself. MTP is file-level protocol and you can continue accessing all files on the phone at the same time as accessing them from your computer. MTP is part of the "Windows Media" framework and so works out-of-the-box in Windows. Linux supports it for 8+ years through GVFS and KIO, while Apple doesn't to this day.
- hk1337 5y ago
  Ah, thank you. Clearly, things have changed a lot since I used an Android device.

by hk1337 5y ago

Haydos585x2 5y ago

They're referring to Android File Transfer, which I agree is a shoddy piece of third party software.

hk1337 5y ago
Kind of like the app you had to use to side load apps and do android development back when it first started?

Chernobog 5y ago

The keyword here is "MTP device". Some phones mount as mass storage device and works out of the box, but MTP requires extra software/drivers.

hk1337 5y ago
What’s the difference? Do you get full access to the phone file system when it’s mounted as a MTP device?
- deaddodo 5y ago
  Mass Storage devices are attached as block devices. MTP devices are attached as file devices. As long as the OS understands the filesystem on a block device, it can mount it. For file devices, it needs to speak the protocol (in this case MTP). MTP is similar to how Apple handles attaching of its devices, just a different protocol. Mass devices can be easily corrupted and have to be unmounted from the current device. MTP can stay mounted and accessible by the mounting OS and source device simultaneously and are much more difficult to corrupt. It also allows the host device more security and control over what the guest can do.
- Liquid_Fire 5y ago
  Older versions of Android used to allow mounting as a mass storage device, but there are several problems with this: - You can't allow apps on the phone access to the filesystem at the same time as it is mounted as a mass storage device (because you may corrupt the FS). - It doesn't work with full-disk encryption used by newer Android versions, because your computer doesn't have the key (and the key is probably stored somewhere in the TPM of your phone, encrypted by your password). - It requires the computer to support the FS used by the phone, which means necessarily using something that Windows/macOS supports (which mostly limits it to FAT/exFAT/NTFS) So starting from Android... 5 or so? you can't mount as mass storage anymore. This probably consists of 99.5%+ of currently functioning Android phones.

zekica 5y ago

This refers to MTP (Media Transfer Protocol). Very old Android devices (with Android 2.x) used to pass-thru the SD card to the host as a USB Storage Device, but that solution was clunky as it requires detaching the SD card from the phone itself. MTP is file-level protocol and you can continue accessing all files on the phone at the same time as accessing them from your computer. MTP is part of the "Windows Media" framework and so works out-of-the-box in Windows. Linux supports it for 8+ years through GVFS and KIO, while Apple doesn't to this day.

hk1337 5y ago
Ah, thank you. Clearly, things have changed a lot since I used an Android device.