Partitioning...

[Snowy_River]

Okay, here's what I'd like to do.

System files, user folder, barebones basics, etc., all on one partition.

Applications folder, data folders, etc., all on another partition.

The big reason for this is that I want to have two system partitions, one for SL and one for Lion. I have yet to upgrade to Lion because I've got system-critical apps that only run under Rosetta. I've been wanting to try it out, though, for some time.

Any thoughts?

 

[Intell]

So you want a total of three partitions? One for Lion, one for Snow Leopard, and one for their shared stuff like applications and user data?

The shared partition isn't going to work for both operating systems. Lion and Snow Leopard have different stock apps and hidden system files and user data. If it does work at all, it'll be very unpredictable and unstable.

 

[r0k]

I have ML booting from an external drive. When I want SL, I boot internal. When I want ML, I boot external. If I wanted to share files between the two partitions, it's simple enough but I keep my home folders separate on the two installs. I suggest you keep 2 home folders, one for each OS but you can create a common documents folder. Of course iPhoto is different in SL and in Lion so you'll want separate iPhoto libraries. iTunes music should be able to be shared with no problem, AFAIK. But the idea of a common apps and home folder between two OS seems problematic at best. Some apps will only run in Lion. Some only in SL but you'll have both apps show up all the time in spotlight in either OS because you have a "merged" apps folder. I shudder at the thought.

 

[Snowy_River]

To be clear, I wasn't looking to try to have a single Home folder. I know the structure of the OS well enough to know that that would cause some real problems. My intent was to have most, if not all, of my documents in a shared folder instead of the Home folder. That and having only one apps folder (currently my apps folder is about 40GB, and needing to duplicate that, more or less, on two different system partitions seems like a terrible waste of space).

It's also a bit disturbing to me to learn that iPhoto is different between the two.

Maybe I'll just get an external to run Lion, but only to play with it. If they are as far apart as they seem to be, until I get a couple thousand dollars to upgrade my Rosetta software, I don't think that I'll be able to manage to run in a mixed environment.

Maybe I could try using the "play" Lion external to tinker with getting SL to run under virtualization...

 

[Snowy_River]

I have ML booting from an external drive. When I want SL, I boot internal. When I want ML, I boot external. If I wanted to share files between the two partitions, it's simple enough but I keep my home folders separate on the two installs. I suggest you keep 2 home folders, one for each OS but you can create a common documents folder. Of course iPhoto is different in SL and in Lion so you'll want separate iPhoto libraries. iTunes music should be able to be shared with no problem, AFAIK. But the idea of a common apps and home folder between two OS seems problematic at best. Some apps will only run in Lion. Some only in SL but you'll have both apps show up all the time in spotlight in either OS because you have a "merged" apps folder. I shudder at the thought.

I boot external. If I wanted to share files between the two partitions, it's simple enough but I keep my home folders separate on the two installs. I suggest you keep 2 home folders, one for each OS but you can create a common documents folder. Of course iPhoto is different in SL and in Lion so you'll want separate iPhoto libraries.

Any particular reason you copied part of r0k's post, word for word? Nothing to add for yourself?

 

[r0k]

Any particular reason you copied part of r0k's post, word for word? Nothing to add for yourself?

I think that person is a spammer, working to build up their post count so they can post pure spam.

To be clear, I wasn't looking to try to have a single Home folder. I know the structure of the OS well enough to know that that would cause some real problems. My intent was to have most, if not all, of my documents in a shared folder instead of the Home folder. That and having only one apps folder (currently my apps folder is about 40GB, and needing to duplicate that, more or less, on two different system partitions seems like a terrible waste of space).

It's also a bit disturbing to me to learn that iPhoto is different between the two.

Maybe I'll just get an external to run Lion, but only to play with it. If they are as far apart as they seem to be, until I get a couple thousand dollars to upgrade my Rosetta software, I don't think that I'll be able to manage to run in a mixed environment.

Maybe I could try using the "play" Lion external to tinker with getting SL to run under virtualization...

The reason for the difference between iPhoto Library on SL vs Lion is that in iPhoto running under Lion you have photostream. I don't know what iPhoto running in SL would do if it came across photostream events in iPhoto Library. Perhaps it would complain that the library was created with a newer version of iPhoto or some such thing. This is why I suggest keeping your photos in your own folder structure and let iPhoto Library be a separate file for each OS. Of course you could opt to stop using iPhoto altogether in one OS, presumably SL assuming you decide you like photostream and you don't want to maintain 2 similar iPhoto Libraries any more.

I'm pretty sure Lion licensing allows virtualization while SL (non server) does not. But you are on the right track. Virtualization is really the best way to deal with multiple OS situations. I used to have a Windows box that multi-booted between Windows and two different Linux distros. The thing I dreaded most was rebooting. It meant large swaths of my data in the "other OS" was inaccessible until I went back. I probably shouldn't preach this b/c I don't practice it (yet) as I'm still multi-booting on my Mountain Lion test machine between SL and ML. But I can say that I didn't waste a whole partition on Windows 8 as I have it in a virtualbox where it belongs.

 

[Snowy_River]

The reason for the difference between iPhoto Library on SL vs Lion is that in iPhoto running under Lion you have photostream. I don't know what iPhoto running in SL would do if it came across photostream events in iPhoto Library. Perhaps it would complain that the library was created with a newer version of iPhoto or some such thing. This is why I suggest keeping your photos in your own folder structure and let iPhoto Library be a separate file for each OS. Of course you could opt to stop using iPhoto altogether in one OS, presumably SL assuming you decide you like photostream and you don't want to maintain 2 similar iPhoto Libraries any more.

Well, as one significant portion of the workflow that requires Rosetta is centered around my photography, I don't think that I'd care to have iPhoto restricted to running under Lion.

I'm pretty sure Lion licensing allows virtualization while SL (non server) does not. But you are on the right track. Virtualization is really the best way to deal with multiple OS situations...

An interesting tidbit that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has tried to push is the fact that, as I understand it, SL's licensing does actually allow you to virtualized it. The restrictions in the license (here I'll add the caveat that I haven't gone over the full license with a fine-toothed legal comb, but this is my understanding from what I have read) state that the OS must be run on Apple hardware and that you may only run one copy of SL at a time. Therefore, if you're running Lion as the host system, then you can, given these licensing conditions, run a single virtualized seat of SL. Unfortunately, folks like Parallels and VMware haven't wanted to push their luck with trying it.

Oh well.

 

[Fishrrman]

"System files, user folder, barebones basics, etc., all on one partition.
Applications folder, data folders, etc., all on another partition."

You would want to keep your apps on the same partition as your system files. Things just seem to work better that way, at least in my experience

Data is a completely different story. For years, I've kept my data files (work, personal, etc.) on a separate partition which can be easily and quickly backed up. For the sake of the OS, I still maintain all the "normal" user folders in my home folder (music, pictures, movies, etc.) -- but there is almost nothing -in- those folders.

I also maintain several bootable versions of the OS on three drives inside my PowerMac g4 tower. Having the data I access on an "independent" volume makes it easy to access no matter which boot volume I'm running from. The only thing one must watch out for are files "stored on the desktop", which ordinarily won't be "seen" from one boot volume to the next.

 

[Bear]

...
Applications folder, data folders, etc., all on another partition.
...

This won't work for some Applications. Some of tyhe issues that may prevent that include installing stuff in system folders (including codecs and device drivers) and requiring different versions for each version of the OS.

 

[Snowy_River]

This is what I was afraid of. Ever since Lion came out and it was clear that Rosetta wasn't going to be included any more, I've been hoping that some third party equivalent would come along. Now we're starting to talk about ML, I haven't event given Lion a try, and there's no sign of such a third party solution. On top of that, this discussion makes it pretty clear that a dual-boot system is clunky, at best, and unworkable at worst.

Grrrrrrrrrr...

 

[Fishrrman]

"On top of that, this discussion makes it pretty clear that a dual-boot system is clunky, at best, and unworkable at worst."

Dual-boot configurations work fine, so long as you keep them on different drives (or just on different partitions).

My (2007) iMac is equipped to boot OS's 10.4.11, 10.6.8, and 10.7.3, depending on what I'm doing.

Rosetta is gone (regrettably) and it doesn't appear to be coming back, nor do I think we'll see any 3rd-party solutions offered. If you're still using apps tied to PowerPC code, now is the time to start thinking of "migrating" apps and data to an Intel-compatible format.

Granted, this can be a LOT of work. I've barely gotten all my data "out of" apps that are still running under "Classic"! (was still using a version of the old MS Works program dated 1993)

But it can be done...

 

[Snowy_River]

Dual-boot configurations work fine, so long as you keep them on different drives (or just on different partitions).

The issue I see is that if there are two different apps, one that's Intel code and one that's PowerPC code, there is the possibility of wanting to run both while under SL and the Intel app under Lion. If there is an update to the Intel app that only applies to Lion, then you can end up losing version parity between the two, forcing you to decide which platform you want to use it under. The prime example of this is iPhoto. I'd like to be able to run iPhoto under both, and only need to pull out SL when I need access to some higher level tools. But I don't want to be cut off from other tools, such as iPhoto, when I'm working under SL.

So, I say again, dual-boot systems seem clunky, at best, and unworkable, at worst. When different tools are accessible under different versions of the OS, necessitating a reboot just to switch between tools, that's pretty clunky. When tools that are desired to be, more or less, universally accessible don't have version parity or can't access a common database across both OSes (an easy example here would be Mail, and who knows what kinds of headaches would come up having Mail under SL and Mail under Lion both: separate mail libraries? Messages stored on one OS but not the other? GROAN!), then if becomes simply unworkable.

Rosetta is gone (regrettably) and it doesn't appear to be coming back, nor do I think we'll see any 3rd-party solutions offered. If you're still using apps tied to PowerPC code, now is the time to start thinking of "migrating" apps and data to an Intel-compatible format.

Granted, this can be a LOT of work. I've barely gotten all my data "out of" apps that are still running under "Classic"! (was still using a version of the old MS Works program dated 1993)

But it can be done...

Truth be told, I still have some apps that I access under OS9. I have found SheepShaver to be a reasonable, though not great, way of doing that. I never found "Classic" itself to be all that great, as it really was just a virtualized OS9, not an integrated runtime library. As such, the step from "Classic" to SheepShaver is a small one. On the other hand, Rosetta is/was an integrated runtime library. With Rosetta, it was possible to be running older apps without ever realizing that you were. Given that, even stepping to an integrated virtualization environment, similar to Classic, or akin to the "desktopless" mode in Parallels and VMWare, is a much bigger step, let alone trying to adapt workflow to the headaches that can come along with dual-boot.

I will try Lion out on a separate partition, but, given that it would cost me a couple thousand dollars to either upgrade all of my perfectly functional software to Intel versions, or buy new software to replace older software that doesn't have Intel versions available, I expect that I'll be sticking with SL as my primary (i.e. 99%+ use) OS.