Can you delete OS9 from OSX

[t.web]

Hi,

I'm a recent convert trying out an ibook with OSX Jaguar for size before possibly committing to a newer faster mac in the future.

I've sussed out most of the basic stuff (as I do IT support and use a lot of platforms I had a bit of an advantage there) but have a question I can't find a confident enough answer to on the net so I'm trying here

As I've only got a tiny 10G hard disk and space is at a premium, I'm keen to clear off much of that installed by the previous owner of my ibook G3. I'm clear that deleting applications is as simple as moving 'em to trash accept for the odd user setting file that may be located elsewhere. No problem.

From that though I look at the 'Classic View' which seems to be another name for OS9. As I'm new to mac and have no old apps that need it and there is nothing currently installed in this environment that I want (in fact there are duplicates like itunes I also have in Jaguar), can I delete it???

My 2 considerations/questions are:
is OS9 in fact necessary for 10.3 to run or is what I have like a 'virtual OS9' that comes as part of OSX?
and are there advantages to retaining it as I've seen in some forums that people use OS9 to perform functions they have having trouble executing on OSX.

Any useful comments gratefully received.

t.web

 

[joshysquashy]

try searching in google, here you go

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050430120117382

 

[t.web]

deleting OS9

Thanks loads for that. No idea why my google search with fairly obvious key words didn't lead me to that thread. Looking at some of the tips, glad I've got a bit of UNIX behind me ...just need to retrain on Google now.

In the thread I still found mention of people wanting access back to to OS9 after they deleted it which I need to think about. May try saving it all to external drive partition just incase. A later restore may not work but what the hell.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You might want to consider burning Classic to a CD before trashing it. Getting Classic back will be a royal pain in the neck, if you ever decided that you need it again.

 

[t.web]

CD burn

Hmm burning a CD's a better plan than me copying it to another partition as it makes restoration a lot simpler. Thanks for that thought.

I wonder if it'd fit though. With the installed OS9 apps it's 1.5 G. there's a lot I'm completely deleting as I've newer versions of apps on OSX but is the core OS9 CD size i.e. 800 Mg or less. Will be inestigating when I get home.

 

[joshysquashy]

I thought you could just pop the tiger install disk in the drive and choose to add classic, im almost 100% sure you can...

 

[mrichmon]

I thought you could just pop the tiger install disk in the drive and choose to add classic, im almost 100% sure you can...

You are almost correct. New machines (G4 & G5) come with an installer to install Classic if you need it. Classic will not run under Rosetta so I doubt that it is shipping with the intel machines.

 

[steve_hill4]

I thought you could just pop the tiger install disk in the drive and choose to add classic, im almost 100% sure you can...

You probably can, but the OP stated they had Jaguar. For Jaguar, I can't remember exactly what came on the restore discs and how the reinstall would work, if at all.

 

[yippy]

Classic is only on restore disks that come with the computers. A retail version of OSX does NOT have classic on the disks.

There are two ways that classic came with Macs. If the computer was OS 9 bootable then it came as a separate OS 9 install disk that you would have to install before putting OS X on it (you may be able to install it after OS X is on the drives but my memory thinks you can't). The other way was if you machine was not capable of booting OS 9 that classic was included in the "Additional Applications" installer on a restore disk.

That said, the core of Classic is the "System Folder" that should only be about 250Mb, the rest is the OS 9 applications which I wouldn't think are important as most have an OS X version or are free to download. The main reason to have classic is if you ever get an OS 9 application that you want to run. In that case you only need to have the 250MB system folder on your drive.

 

[Macky-Mac]

you're a recent convert just starting on Macs? Do you even have any old pre-OS X software sitting around waiting for you to use?.....you're unlikely to ever need OS 9 so dont worry about dumping it and I really doubt it's worth your time to make a back up copy "just in case"

 

[thewhitehart]

you're a recent convert just starting on Macs? Do you even have any old pre-OS X software sitting around waiting for you to use?.....you're unlikely to ever need OS 9 so dont worry about dumping it and I really doubt it's worth your time to make a back up copy "just in case"

Yep. Trash it. You don't need Classic if you're just starting on macs. When Leopard rolls around, Classic support will be dropped completely (for Leopard). The intel macs out now don't support it either. It's a surprise that Apple has supported Classic thus far - but that just goes to show how much they love their dedicated customers.