Housekeeping MACOSX

[derekmcwilliams]

Hello.

I am relatively new to Macs, and so Im looking for some advice.

Im running a fiarly simple setup, iLife + firefox + Microsoft office + ProTools + Reason.

I want to be able to keep the machine tidy, when im uninstallating programs etc... what regular housekeeping do you guys recommend?

I also want to learn how to start sentances that dont start with 'I'.

I thanks boys.

Derrick.

 

[LeeTom]

Thank girls too, but... One useful thing is "repairing permissions".
Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.
Click on your system disk, and click the repair permissions button.

That's all I do, and my system runs great, but other people will probably post some more advanced stuff like, anacron stuff... I don't bother. I just use the thing, and it works. the end.

Lee Tom

 

[Blue Velvet]

Thank girls too, but... One useful thing is "repairing permissions".
Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.
Click on your system disk, and click the repair permissions button.

It's best to do this from the installation disk that came with your machine. I don't believe that it does the full process when you do it from your startup disk.

Put the disk in the machine, restart while holding down 'C', this boots the machine from the CD. When the installer screen comes up go to the Installer menu and choose 'Disk Utility'. Then run 'repair permissions' over your startup disk. When finished, quit the installer and restart the machine normally.

Another good utility to run is MacJanitor.
It is free and you can download it from here:
http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html

 

[yellow]

The skinny..

It's best to do this from the installation disk that came with your machine. I don't believe that it does the full process when you do it from your startup disk.

This is actually the opposite of what should be done.

Repairing Permissions off the CD should only be done in an emergency.

When one repairs permissions, one is comparing the specified permissions in the BOM (bill of materials) files found in /Library/Receipts/ against those of the actual directories. If the permissions differ, they are "repaired". Naturally, the BOMs found in /Library/Receipts/ on your start up disk are much more current then those found on your Installer CDs. Hence the reason that repairing permissions should be done off your start up disk.

If for some reason you can get into your machine, say a joker makes your root directory inaccessible to "others", this is a good time to boot from the CD and fix the permissions.

Please note that "Repair Permissions" does not descend into your /User directory. It will not fix incorrectly set user settings. Running it as a 'maintenance' is not necessary unless you cannot remember to repair after any installation that requires an admin password.

IMO, the only "housekeeping" things that should be done are the /daily/weekly/monthly scripts that rotate your logs.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I stand corrected.



The only reason I mentioned this was that by doing it this way fixed a whole lot of small niggling problems on my machine that had resisted all previous attempts at repair.

Why then does it say on Disk Utility:
'To repair or verify the startup disk, boot from Mac OSX Install CD...etc'

 

[yellow]

Why then does it say on Disk Utility:
'To repair or verify the startup disk, boot from Mac OSX Install CD...etc'

Because that's for verification and repairing of the drive/file structure, not the permissions.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Aaaah... ok, thanks for clearing that up.
Apologies all round for posting complete crap.

 

[Sun Baked]

Why then does it say on Disk Utility:
'To repair or verify the startup disk, boot from Mac OSX Install CD...etc'

Every now and then boot into single user mode (command-s) as soon as you turn the machine on and run fsck (the text will tell you what to type) and the reboot.

Unlike "repair permissions" which should be done whenever you do a bunch of program/system updates to correct some of the permissions that get messed up during installs -- running fsck in single user mode or Disk First Aid (inside Disk Utility) off the CD should be the one you try to remember to do.

If you run into a bunch of force quit/kernal panics/outright freezes/etc. you may want to run fsck on restart -- when the above happens there's a chance OS X won't finish writing stuff to disk (OS X doesn't really do this stuff right now like OS 9.)

The only reason to run it is because there is a chance these drive problems will build up and get worse until the drive no longer works (flashing question mark syndrome.)

 

[musicpyrite]

Every week or 2 I type "sudo periodic daily weekly monthly" in the terminal.
Ever week, or after I install a large program (Office 2004, Xcode) I'll repair permissions.
About every month I'll type "sudo update_prebinding -root / -force " in the terminal, reboot, type it again, then reboot again.

That's it.