Partition - Swap - Spit Shine

[AlphaTech]

alex_ant, if you can only afford one utility, get Norton System Works 2 (contains Norton Utilities, NAV and a few other packages). IF you have purchased any of the Symantec utilities in the past few years, you can get it a the upgrade price. That is the only one I currently own, the other two are owned by the company I work for.

I have never seen, or had, a problem with HFS+/extended. With the smaller block size, it gives you more room on your hard drive (4k blocks no matter what the drive size, or partition size).

FAT file systems are for win98 and it's decendants. Anything built on NT tech. uses NTFS (hellofalot better then fat ever was or could be). Oh, and their utilities are not free, when you consider the cost of windblows and then the Mac OS. Get the Mac OS and you have at least $100 left over to use for other things (like Norton).

Oh yeah, and OS X DOESN'T REQUIRE any utilities, but it still a good idea to have something. There are utilities for windblows too, since the ones that come packaged with it BLOW! Not even close to a good blow at that.

I will be picking up Drive 10 shortly (about $60-$70 I believe) since that is the next generation of TechTool Pro for OS X.

Also, EVERYONE should have some kind of antivirus software on their computer. You never know when someone will send you an infected file, which you could turn around and send out as well. Even if it doesn't do any harm to your computer, you will be getting tons of email telling you that you have one.

 

[evildead]

my set up

Disk 0:

60GB OSX and OS 9

Disk 1:

2GB swap
1.5GB emergincy OS X
53GB Data

Works fine for me. In a few months I can get rid of OS 9 compleetly. Unfortunatly I have some apps that have OS 9 installers with OS X updaters (like Aduobe Acorbat and Roxio Toast) So I still need 9 arround for installs.

 

[mmmdreg]

Umm..I'm a bit lost but how do you copy all your appz onto a partition and remove the original folder from the OSX install?

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by mmmdreg
Umm..I'm a bit lost but how do you copy all your appz onto a partition and remove the original folder from the OSX install?

It's tricky...first off you have to make sure that you're actually getting all of the folder contents when you copy it...then you have to get around the file permissions to trash the old one (Terminal or OS 9)...

Then you have to fix all the aliases in your Dock to point to the right place...


I did this last week and Mail.app stopped working...luckily I grabbed one from another machine and it worked fine...BE CAREFUL!

 

[mmmdreg]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


It's tricky...first off you have to make sure that you're actually getting all of the folder contents when you copy it...then you have to get around the file permissions to trash the old one (Terminal or OS 9)...

Then you have to fix all the aliases in your Dock to point to the right place...


I did this last week and Mail.app stopped working...luckily I grabbed one from another machine and it worked fine...BE CAREFUL!

OK, I'll leave that alone...so what if I want to copy the Users folder onto a partition? is that dangerous too? mymemory on the first page of this post seems to have a "storage" partition which has all the stuff in your ~/ which basically means its a users partition right?

 

[mmmdreg]

Oops...the thread mymemory posted in wasn't this one but the one entitled partition hd or something.

-Dreg-

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by mmmdreg


OK, I'll leave that alone...so what if I want to copy the Users folder onto a partition? is that dangerous too? mymemory on the first page of this post seems to have a "storage" partition which has all the stuff in your ~/ which basically means its a users partition right?

It would be a similar situation...the Unix file structure tends be a little rigid as far as where things can be put...
All of your preferences, mail, settings get stored in your User folder, so moving it would probably confuse some of your apps.

Someone here might know how to reroute everything in the command line, but I sure don't.

 

[AlphaTech]

I would suggest leaving well enough alone. If it ain't busted, don't fix it (and f*ck it up royally). Personally, I am an advocate of single partitioning drives. I have had excellent results with this method, in both performance and stability. As well as being easier to find items, and not having to worry about linking to other partitions, or needing to redo them later when one runs out of room faster then you expected.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

dumb question

but what exactly are "swap" files/drives...?

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: dumb question

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
but what exactly are "swap" files/drives...?

There are no dumb questions...only dumb people.

Unix uses a virtual memory system that allocates a swap file to the harddrive. By placing this file on another drive/partition you can keep the drive from thrashing so much...and (hopefully) performing better.

 

[mmmdreg]

path

Does anyone know how to add directories to their path? Fink created a /sw directory which was in my path and after I backed it up, I partitioned my HD and replaced the directory. It seems I forgot to backup a file about my path so now /sw is not in my path. Can anybody help?

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: path

Originally posted by mmmdreg
Does anyone know how to add directories to their path? Fink created a /sw directory which was in my path and after I backed it up, I partitioned my HD and replaced the directory. It seems I forgot to backup a file about my path so now /sw is not in my path. Can anybody help?

I'm not sure I follow you...
Do you mean add a folder to your User directory?

 

[AlphaTech]

Re: Re: dumb question

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


There are no dumb questions...only dumb people.

Unix uses a virtual memory system that allocates a swap file to the harddrive. By placing this file on another drive/partition you can keep the drive from thrashing so much...and (hopefully) performing better.

I like the South Park take on that.. 'there are no stupid questions, only stupid people'

South Park rules football.... OUCH!!!!

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: Re: Re: dumb question

Originally posted by AlphaTech


I like the South Park take on that.. 'there are no stupid questions, only stupid people'

South Park rules football.... OUCH!!!!

Damn! My sources are too obvious!
I gotta go watch some new stuff...

 

[mmmdreg]

Re: Re: path

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


I'm not sure I follow you...
Do you mean add a folder to your User directory?

No...you know in a terminal, to use some applications (like BitchX), you type "BitchX" and it will run if the executable is in your path. It's like where your computer looks for it....

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: Re: Re: path

Originally posted by mmmdreg


No...you know in a terminal, to use some applications (like BitchX), you type "BitchX" and it will run if the executable is in your path. It's like where your computer looks for it....

OK..got it...sorry, I'm still a Terminal newbie...but not a teminal newbie I hope!

 

[mmmdreg]

I found the answer to all my problems at kung-foo.tv/xtips.php ...Check the partitions as well...He's got good reasoning for all of it. In case you can't see it:Appz 2GB;users 10GB; GNU(ie.fink-related) 1.5GB;XSpace(ie. osx) 3.5GB;STM(swap-file) 400mb;classic 400mb...
...he went on further to show how you put the applications and users directories in their new homes and make them mount at / instead of /volumes/volumename...

-Dreg-

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by mmmdreg
I found the answer to all my problems at kung-foo.tv/xtips.php ...Check the partitions as well...He's got good reasoning for all of it. In case you can't see it:Appz 2GB;users 10GB; GNU(ie.fink-related) 1.5GB;XSpace(ie. osx) 3.5GB;STM(swap-file) 400mb;classic 400mb...
...he went on further to show how you put the applications and users directories in their new homes and make them mount at / instead of /volumes/volumename...

-Dreg-

Sounds like a royal pain in the a$$ to me. Then again, I also never went for the dual booting peecee's. One drive, one OS, more OS's then get a mobile rack. Oh, and 400mb... damn that's small, 400 megabits sheesh. With the single partition, I never have to worry about placing something into the wrong one, or filling one up and needing to do the entire thing over again. That will happen, unless you are not going to install much. I have three or four applications that will deplete that 2GB partition on the easy install alone. Never mind the rest of my software.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

dumb person

since there are no dumb queries but only dumb people. i'll be the dumb one to ask this:

is a drive partitioned into two pieces able to function as 2 separate drives?

ie. if i put os x on one partition and os 9 on the other, am i able to use utilities on the one to check/repair the other?

if so, that would be great. as of now i have 2 separate hard drives both running os x AND 9. a stripped down version of x and 9 on the second drive of course... i'm not that dumb... that allows me to boot up and fix things as i mentioned. but partitioning seems to allow me to do this from just the one drive?

i'm in no hurry to partition as i am now (and always) in the process of organizing files (old video projects and all that) but if it would allow for repair and such then i could just use the entire second drive for goodies... now that would be nice.

for you other no partitioners out there... you just boot up from the utilities cds when you do anything on the drive?

thanks all

 

[Rower_CPU]

Good job, dummy!

A partitioned drive acts like separate drives...I'm not sure what the absolute limit is, but you can partition a drive several times over. 3, 4, 5...go nuts!

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Good job, dummy!

A partitioned drive acts like separate drives...I'm not sure what the absolute limit is, but you can partition a drive several times over. 3, 4, 5...go nuts!

that's kinda what i thought after reading everyone else's posts.

i am hesitant to make more than 1 for each os though, especially given the whole users, apps, etc folders thing in x... but to free up that other drive completely of os'es would be nice

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule


that's kinda what i thought after reading everyone else's posts.

i am hesitant to make more than 1 for each os though, especially given the whole users, apps, etc folders thing in x... but to free up that other drive completely of os'es would be nice

You feel that you need to do this because??????

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by AlphaTech


You feel that you need to do this because??????

don't feel the need at all..

especially after a few other people (i think you were included) said they have just 1 partition and things work fine...

however rower had said something about making "3, 4, 5... go nuts!" so that was just kinda my reason for not wanting to go too nuts.

i want to get x and 9 separate just so i can load up in one to fix the other (for some reason my drive has occasional problems) so knowing that loading in one partition would allow me to totally repair the other partition even though it's the same physical hard drive is what i was curious about.

other than that though, i'm more than happy with the one partition. unfortunately i still feel the need to use classic occasionally... there are just the random things that x can't do including some web stuff or just miscellaneous apps that haven't been ported yet etc. so while i pare down my 9 apps, i'd like to have a decent working 9 partition.

as i said though, i'm in no hurry to erase my drive. had enough problems last time i had to do that.