The newly developed amifuse project introduces a filesystem driver designed for compatibility with Amiga disk images on modern systems. This driver, which operates on macOS and Linux, utilizes an invisible m68k CPU emulator to enable the mounting of disk images formatted with the Amiga's Professional File System 3 (PFS3), a proprietary format that was open-sourced in 2011. Though initial support is read-only, users can enable experimental read-write functionality via command-line options.
Accessing Amiga files on contemporary machines has been a challenge, particularly since the Linux kernel offers limited support for older Amiga filesystems, excluding PFS3. The driver does not rely on reverse-engineering but rather runs the AmigaOS PFS3 driver within a CPU emulation environment, ensuring high compatibility. Users must also install macFUSE or FUSE for Linux and have Python and 7z tools ready for the build process, as pre-compiled binaries are not yet available.
Despite its potential, the amifuse driver is currently reported to be "incredibly slow," with concerns about high CPU usage when indexing files through Finder or Spotlight. As a result, users with physical Amiga hardware will need to create disk images before these can be utilized with the driver.