SuperDuper! + Chameleon 2.0 RC1 = Tweaker's Delight!

[limini]

One thing that becomes obvious after you've set up osx86 a few times is that the initial installation is often easier than the scary updates. The more cautious back up the entire partition and restore when things go wrong, but that's a very long process to do repetitively.

 

I've found that using SuperDuper! with Chameleon 2.0 RC1, you can use a spare partition to create a Sandbox and experiment with whatever system patches you wish without altering your original partition in the least. Advantages:

 

• The Sandbox only contains system files.
  
• All user and application files remain on the primary partitition and links are created to them.
  
• It's a lot faster to backup in the first place: my 150 gigs primary is only 70 gigs in the Sandbox.
  
• It's a lot faster to update the Sandbox to changes in the primary partition.
  
• It's a lot faster to revert the Sandbox to the primary partition state when things go wrong.
  
• You can boot to your stable primary partition at any time to use your system as you already do, even if your Sandbox is a mess.
  

Note that only the registered version of SuperDuper! will allow incremental backups (Smart Update), which will save you tons of time and IMO is well worth the reasonable $28 it costs. The only down side with SuperDuper! is that it only works with HFS+ partitions so if your system is using something else, it likely won't work for you.

 

This isn't a tutorial but the quick steps are:

 

• Create a bootable mac partition on your disk or on an external drive (I used a USB drive). Read the SuperDuper docs on creating the Sandbox.
  
• Use the SuperDuper's "Sandbox - shared users and applications" script to backup your primary partition to the Sandbox.
  
• Once finished, using the installer version, install Chameleon 2.0 RC1 onto this new partition (you can select it from the Chameleon installer)
  

I assume you're already using the new Chameleon 2.0 bootloader on your primary (I am). The Sandbox will appear as a choice when you boot, so select it and boot from it. It should be exactly like your home partition. Then fiddle, install, and test to your heart's content till you find the upgrade path that works for you. Whenever things screw up, reboot into your main partition and Back up using Smart Update and your Sandbox will return to a mirror of your main partition. Once you've got a working update procedure down, then you can do it to your primary partition. And if you don't have time to work on it, just boot into your primary and do what you have to do.

 

Important: once you find a working update procedure, you might be tempted to simply copy the Sandbox to your main partition: DON'T!!! The SuperDuper docs strongly advise against this and you might end up losing everything because you'll be overwriting files with their aliases. They say there is a way but it isn't for everyone. I stay away and suggest you do too, unless you know exactly what you're doing.

 

I've found this to be the most efficient way to fiddle with osx86 updates and upgrades. Note that this is NOT a backup solution, since you're only linking to the majority of files on the main partition. But since you've already got SuperDuper, you can use it to make a sparse image to recover from and use Smart Update to update that...

 

BTW: I don't have any association to SuperDuper; it just happens to work for me so I thought I'd share. Brilliant thanks to the Chameleon and EFI crews! Happy fiddling