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Fresh lion install on new rmbp
- Thread starter sk8r1230
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I've done fresh installs of Lion, but never was given any option to not include iLife and the language files. How do you do that?
Well with iLife u just don't reinstall and the language files are under the custom tab just prior to click install for lion
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So after reformatting the recovery portion will still be safe and untouched? Is lion already downloaded to that partition and it just needs installed or what
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So after reformatting the recovery portion will still be safe and untouched? Is lion already downloaded to that partition and it just needs installed or what
When you reformat, just choose the Macintosh HD. The recovery partition is locked by Apple and cannot be reformatted through disk utility. Why bother going through the hassle of a USB recovery. Just use recovery partition.
I can't really see the point. There's not any bloatware on the Mac like the PC, and at most you'll save 1-2 GB for the languages and maybe 3GB for iLife total (especially since not all the GarageBand audio/instruments are downloaded by default now). It certainly doesn't affect performance (maybe vs an upgrade, but you've already got a clean install from the factory anyways).
jW
jW
4-5GB is still insignificant even with a 256GB drive, but even if for some reason you feel you need the space, there's no reason you can't just delete the stuff you need without the major hassle of a clean install. It's a waste of time for no benefit.
And think what you will, but iLife is used by probably 90% of the people who get a Mac, which means that they are nothing like the bloatware that is installed on most PC's.
jW
An app like CleanMyMac can safely delete things like spurious language files if you want to reclaim a few GB.
There is a bit of confusion in this thread. 2010+ MacBooks have Lion Recovery built into the system firmware. So when you do a command-r boot it will boot to the firmware Lion Recovery. So even if the version of Lion Recovery that is on the drive recovery partition is gone or broken, the system will still boot to Lion Recovery in firmware.
The full Lion install is not on the Lion Recovery partition like in some Microsoft Windows systems. Lion Recovery just allows you to redownload the full Lion install from Apple and reinstall it.
From Disk Utility in Lion Recovery you can reformat (erase) either the entire drive including the Recovery Partition, or just format the "Macintosh HD" partition which is where Lion is installed.
Look at my screen shot of Disk Utility below. If you click the HD itself where my red arrow is, then click the erase tab, that will allow you to format the entire drive including the Lion Recovery partition on the drive. Then when you reinstall Lion it will create a new Lion Recovery partition on the drive.
If you just want to format (erase) the Lion install, click on "Macintosh HD" then erase.
IMO Apple has really confused everybody with all this. We have Lion Recovery in firmware, Lion Recovery partition on the drive, plus you can make a Lion Recovery USB key with a utility from Apple. It is not immediately clear to new users what each of these is.
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See my post above. If you have a 2010+ Macbook you can run Lion Recovery from firmware and Disk Util will format the recovery partition if you choose to do that.
I think you are confusing a Lion Recovery USB key (which I agree is redundant if you have Lion Recovery in firmware) with a full Lion install USB key. There is some value to having a full Lion install on a USB key. If you are at a hotel and for some reason need to reinstall Lion, you will be there a long time waiting for Lion Recovery to download the entire Lion install over the hotel's wi-fi. With a USB Lion installer you can just pop the USB key in and install.
I would not recommend CleanMyMac, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.
If you want to delete language files and unneeded architectures, Monolingual is a safer bet, but caution is still advised. Some problems may occur if certain languages are deleted.
In general, you don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.
These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.
Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.
Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.