Best practices for new installation - Noobs

[hoyanf]

From my experience with Multi OS's it's always best to hav multiple partitions for emergency boot & recovery... I would normally hav 4 partition's for OSX no matter on AppleHardware or OSX86, primarily the BootDVD, Test, Work & Files..

 

The BootDVD partition normally for reinstallation but for some ppl on OSX86 you might encounter unable to boot after installation due to unrecognised Installation Setup from partition..

I use my Test partition for testing drivers and apps so that i wont screw up my actual environment that is on the "Work" partition.. Files is always important to keep incase you've misplaced it somewhere else or accidentally reinstalled on your system, so i keep them separately...

 

One more thing that i see that plays a important part to multiboot is the "com.apple.Boot.plist" file, whereby you should have the "timeout" to enable multiboot partitions... So my setup is as below

 

Single Disk Setup

BootDVD -> 4.7GB (Nice to hav especially to repair file permissions, disk or reset password)

Test -> 5.0GB (anything above 3GB is fine)

Work -> 30GB (min requirement as you should install the Apple Dev Kit to compile apps or drivers)

Files -> rest of available space (for backup doc's, driver's, apps or your own compiled apps and drivers)

 

*** Note for multi installation the active boot partition is always the last installation partition ***

 

For editing plist files i've always preferd to make use of the Terminal (less hassle as you wont need to repair permissions if you use sudo)

 

Superuser access (ROOT)

$sudo -s (this enables to use superuser access to create, edit, remove, move files and directories)

 

Nano editor :- (from terminal just type "nano")

$nano (simple text editor with keyword search)

to search CTRL+W

search and replace CTRL+W CTRL+R (enter the search word then enter the replacement)

to exit nano just press CTRL+X

 

to remove files folders :-

rm abc def ghi (you can specify multiple files/folders in a single line - not available in *dows)

or rm {a..i} will files with a till i alphabetically or you can use numerical rm {1..10} (my advise always do a trial error and you'll learn better...)

** to use rm to delete folders you would have to add -fr e.g "rm -fr" is basically f=force r=recursively e.g. rm -fr /System/Library/AppleIntelGMA*

 

Finding files or directories :-

Command (find) Location (/User) Pattern (-name) File/Folder (test) Type (-type) File/Folder ( f or d ) Execute ( -print / -exec "command" ) *** Good help file is always "man find"

find /Users -name test -type f -print (to find files with name "test" and print the result)

find /Users -name test -type f -exec rm {} \; (to find and remove the "test" file)

 

MultiBoot Menu

nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

<key>timeout</key>

<string>5</string>

 

If you want to make exact copy of the DVD to the Partition is like this (i use dd command) :-

• Open Terminal and do df ( to list mounted partitions e.g. BootDVD=/dev/disk1
  
• Then open DiskUtility and unmount the drive that you want to create an image
  
• Then only you use the dd command to create/copy the partition/disk
  

dd if=/dev/disk1s3 of=/dev/disk0s1 bs=512 (bs=512 is always to make it bootable works on PPC and X86)

for iso image "dd if=/dev/disk1s3 of=Desktop/image.iso bs=512 ("of" placement is where you want to put you file to, here it'll goto /Users/$HOMEFOLDER/Desktop/filename.iso)

 

All i can say its always best to be safe than sorry, if you can afford a server or external drive is good... I've had my share of success and sorrow...

If you wanna hav an non-problematic OSX, then you should get Apple Hardware... OSX is a good stepping stone for those whom are new to *nix system's, it has a fair share of ClosedSource and OpenSource in it...

 

Gaming is good, why i wonder i dont see any Mac's on WCG...

 

Lastly this is a good communty to get help and share your knowledge and i would really like to see Apple open the OSX to normal pc's as the initial plan with "Rhapsody"

 

Hope this will helpfull to some of you out there...

 

Best of luck and enjoy the OSX...