changing the location of Loops?

Give it a try cb911, if an Alias doesn't work then a Symlink definately will

Nermal said:

OK, move the GarageBand folder to your other partition. Let's say it's in /Volumes/Part2/GarageBand.

Next, open up Terminal and type:

cd "/Library/Application Support"
ln -s /Volumes/Part2/GarageBand GarageBand

That should do it. Go into /Library/Application Support with Finder and you should see a link to GarageBand there (it'll have a little arrow).

Click to expand...

That symlink should work, although the "quotes" around the directory name in the cd command aren't necessary. If you go to the original location, you'll see a folder that looks like a Mac OS X alias. Double-clicking it will open the target - in this case, the moved GarageBand folder. As far as I know, all Mac OS X applications are aware of symlinks and will parse them, so it SHOULD work.

Nermal said:

The quotes are necessary because the path contains a space. If you don't use the quotes, you get the error "-bash: cd: /Library/Application: No such file or directory".

Typing cd /Library/Application\ Support will also work though.

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Thanks Nermal - didn't see that space in the pathname.

cb911 said:

BTW, i forgot to mention that when i got the message Instrument library invalid' it gives an option to choose the library. i tried to choose the Instrument Library from the new location, the other partition that i just moved it to but it didnt' accept it, and just popped up that message again.

okay, i've just repaired permissions, i just thought that i should have done it before i moved the folder. but i just cannot change the permissions of the GarageBand folder on the second partition? from the Get Info window i go to the drop-down menu and select 'system' as owner, and click it, and it just stays as 'mugget'? and the same thing happens for group as well. i try to change it to 'admin' and it just stays as 'unknown'.

i know when un-taring something from Terminal (or in other *NIX based systems) there is a flag to add to the tar command to retain permissions. is there something like that when using the mv command?

also, if i can't get this to work, i might have to use some other app. does anyone know of some shareware (or even payware ) that lets you use 'layers' of audio?

Click to expand...

Check the options on that other partition - is the "ignore ownership on this volume" box checked? If it IS, you won't be able to set permissions, as you experienced. Also, any permissions on the other volume won't be preserved.

copy the contents of "/Library/Application Support/GarageBand" library to the new partition and remember to preserve permissions. if you are unsure how to do this, .sit it and decompress it from the archive.

anyway, when you have things in the new partition, say named "Storage", open terminal and edit "/etc/fstab" file with root account. put in a line that says exactly:

LABEL=Storage "/Library/Application Support/GarageBand" hfs rw 1 2

and make all those spaces (other than in "application support") with a tab key.

then, after a reboot, your new partition will be mounted to the directory you just defined, and the operating system will not be able to tell the difference. only thing that will change is the folder icon of the mount point, which will become like the ones you get with network shares (which technically are mount points).

this is btw a proper way to move /Users folder to a new partition, and i'd suggest you move that away from the system partition and leave the loops where they are. after all, you install the loops once and they stay wherever they are installed - but /Users folder changes constantly, making system partition badly fragmented over time. moving it away keeps system drive faster.

in case someone is interested, i have a 60GB hard drive in this albook, partitioned 15GB system - 25GB users - 15GB storage. the users partition is mounted to /Users and storage partition is mounted to /Users/Shared and this way i can force the computer to store system files to the fastest part of the hard drive and all shared stuff (itunes library et.al.) to the slowest part of the hard drive. and should i reinstall the system, i will just wipe the system partition clean and do a clean install. no need to move user files anywhere.

cb911 said:

whoa! edit the fstab... i'm not too keen on that.

i might just give up on it, i wouldn't really be using it that much anyway, and i've got better things to use the 5GB for.

also, on the Apple forums, someone was saying that Soundtrack is better than GB? but Soundtrack only comes with Final Cut Pro, right? it's not available by itself? but can anyone comment on that? is it better than GB? i'm guessing it would be, because it's a pro app.

Click to expand...

Soundtrack USED to come exclusively with FCP, but it's now available on its own.

cb911 said:

whoa! edit the fstab... i'm not too keen on that.

Click to expand...

it's not so frightening thing to do - all you do is a kind of an alias. in real-world speaking: you tell the operating system to put your second partition into the finder's "Users" folder so when you access your "Users folder you are actually accessing your second partition.

nothing to worry about. you will not lose files. you will not screw up your system. you just have to do a few things via the command-line interface, and you will have to have a root account enabled. first, move files to new partition, second, make the alias, third, reboot - voila, all done.

if you make a typo with the fstab line, the second partition will not mount, but the system will start. it will look strange however, because you did move your user files to the new partition and the system doesn't see them before you manage to tell it how to do that - so if you indeed make a typo, the system will generate a fresh /Users/yourusername folder with all fresh default settings, and you can try again to fix that typo. and if you're scared enough, you can always move your user files back to original location and forget about it.

if you have the courage, then go for it and give it a try. you can lose files only when you yourself delete them, so don't. and to minimize the possibility of a typo, i'd suggest you rename your second partition in such a way that there are no spaces in it.

as i said, i myself moved my entire /Users folder to a different partition and couln't be happier with the decision. now whatever i do, i will not interfere with system files, and the system runs so fast it's almost impossible to imagine. and should i reinstall my system, i will not have to move my user files anywhere. i just wipe the system partition clean and install a fresh system. nice. i'd recommend this for everybody who doesn't mind the extra work

fstab doesn't affect the boot process. it only controls the "mount aliases" and nothing more. it defines that "some directory" is found from "some partition" which has "some filesystem". it's not so cryptic

if for some reason you mistyped something, then the mount process will be terminated and your system boots without such a mount. in other words, having moved your /Users data to another partition before boot, that data will not be available in /Users folder if the mount fails. which means that your user settings will not be available in that login session. but to ease your mind, system keeps account information outside /Users folder so your users and passwords will be just as before - only user files are not accessible if the mount fails.

you have as many chances to get it right as you need. and if you get frustrated, you can always move your user data back and forget about the fstab file. you just need to be calm when you do it, because only reason for lost files is that you delete them yourself.

just two little minor details:
1) you should use tab key when making spaces in the /etc/fstab file
2) the directory you want to mount must exist before you mount (so don't delete /Users folder - just move the contents to another partition)

JFreak said:

fstab doesn't affect the boot process. it only controls the "mount aliases" and nothing more. it defines that "some directory" is found from "some partition" which has "some filesystem". it's not so cryptic

if for some reason you mistyped something, then the mount process will be terminated and your system boots without such a mount. in other words, having moved your /Users data to another partition before boot, that data will not be available in /Users folder if the mount fails. which means that your user settings will not be available in that login session. but to ease your mind, system keeps account information outside /Users folder so your users and passwords will be just as before - only user files are not accessible if the mount fails.

you have as many chances to get it right as you need. and if you get frustrated, you can always move your user data back and forget about the fstab file. you just need to be calm when you do it, because only reason for lost files is that you delete them yourself.

just two little minor details:
1) you should use tab key when making spaces in the /etc/fstab file
2) the directory you want to mount must exist before you mount (so don't delete /Users folder - just move the contents to another partition)

Click to expand...

I tried your tip, but the Users drive refused to mount! I wonder if it was because the Users directory didn't exist on the drive...
Oh well - I decided it wasn't worth it and went back to my previous configuration.