Installing Jaguar Should've Been Easy, But..., UNIX - a brave new world...? Options

[Teiwaz]

UNIX (Mac OS X Jaguar 10.2) has been nothing but a nightmare to install on my dual 1 gig mac...




I'm still struggling to get it on a separate 10 gig partition on my ata barracuda...I have never before experienced such a f***ed up install scenario...it kept me up till 4am last night...should've bin straightforward...



The installer craps out after getting past the "select language" stage...hmm. I thought it was a dodgy install disc, but it worked fine on a titanium laptop...I feel there is WAY more than meets the eye with this UNIX based beast...mmm...




I think UNIX is (once we all have accumulated knowledge of how it actually BEHAVES) a (very?) stable platform...but as for it leaving residual "invisible to OS9" files lying around on one's HD after lobbing everything visible that was OSX beta into the trashcan (I did this with beta OSX a while back when I first bought the dual 1 gig - I didn't want it on the same drive as my tried & trusted OS9) it has the ability to really mess with your computer's data in a real PHANTOM kind of a way when you try to do a fresh install of Jaguar (on a separate HD) simply because OSX beta used to be on the boot drive...aaargh! This appears to be the problem I'm having...



Personally, I feel that it was not the best move by Jobs & Co to actually have OSX (Beta) pre-installed alongside OS9 on the new G4's out of the box...we customers should've been given the option ourselves; ie: OS9 OR OSX ONLY on the boot drive to start with, ta very much, but no, TWO completely (alien to each other in terms of their kernels, source code etc) residing on the same drive...?! I guess that's what happens when one wants to sell truckloads of computers to people with a promise of "stability", "backwards" compatibility (er..) and a nice "windows style front end" presentation to attract the PC crowd...but what about existing mac people like myself? I should have been given the option to have either one or the other OS on the machine I bought...hmm..trying to please everybody can backfire on the existing mac customer, it would appear...



My only hope is that by backing up all of my s**t from my OS9 boot drive, and then doing a low level format to it(ugh...all those registrations and serial numbers that have to be reactivated...arg) will hopefully get rid of anything that is invisible beta UNIX off my damned boot drive!!

Then, maybe, I will be able to install Jaguar without a problem....thanks, Apple.

If all that doesn't work, I shall get myself a psychiatrist and send the bill to Steve Jobs...



end of bitter rant...

Anyone else experienced such outlandish install behaviour on their desktop G4's as a result of previously lobbing everything "visible" that was OSX off their boot drive when they first bought their desktop G4?

Any hard earned advice to offer...?

[Francois Déchery]

Hi teiwaz

The painless way to have OSX installed on your mac is to have at least 2 partitions ( or two HD )
- install an OS9 on one partition
- install jaguar on the second

about sizes:
OS9 system stuff only can live on a 300M partition, but OSX need at least 2-3G (you can keep a LOT of space if you avoid to install languages files, and specially avoid installing drivers for printers that you don't have : epson drivers take about 600M....)

about partitions:
as you have noticed, having OS9 and osX on the same partition, can be dangerous because, from the OS9 view (the finder), you wont see some hidden unix files, that OS9 doesnt show to you (to make things easyer for beginners, but really messy for all of us, mac used users, who like to customize our mac the way we used to: ie trashing OSX from OS9 CANT be done cleany and easely from OS9 and will certainly lead to the problems you got)

Partitionning is the only easy solution!

As partitions, cant be easely changed (especially when you know that you CANT copy an OSX from one HD to another HD, using the drag&drop way you was able to do on previous MacOS), i suggest you to think twice about your partition sheme.

To allow future easy OSX updating/installing while keeping the previous OSX installed, you may also chose to have your /USERS/ folder on a separate partition like:
- part1:OS 10.2
- part2:OS 10.3 (installed in the future)
- part3: /USERS/
- part4: OS9
- (part5: for swap. OPTIONNAL: having it on a separate HD is even better for performances)

<i>this is just an example (partition order/sizes/count)</i>

With this sheme, you can choose to have your jaguar (part1) use your USERS folder (in part2 - which include all your documents, system settings , personal Apps) .When later you want to install a new OSX, you can do it safely on part3, and if your happy with the new system, you can set your new OSX to use your /USERS/ folder (part2), to immedialty restore all your user's setting, plugs, documents, apps.... a few month after, you could erase your (now unused) part1.
At the opposite, if you have problems with the new OSX installed (drivers things, incompatible vital applications, etc...) you can fastly come back to your previous OSX (part1).

Forget the OS9 way when you could even have 2 systems on the same partition, moving some extention from the old to the new system, copying preferences, etc...in OSX, theses things become really more difficult (a lot of files to pay attention to, some having to be modified, keeping an eyes on the file authorisations, etc..) Believe me, it will take years before you can play with the systems stuff the way any 6 months OS9 mac user could!
OSX is unix, and unix is NOT designed to make theses things easy (it was not the primary goal). So, to keep a certain freedom without having to become an unix geek, you have to setup a convenient partition sheme. it will save you time later

And beware that even if things seems easy on OSX, the hidden stff is really NOT that easy: some hidden system files can be really corrupted, without you seeing it immediatly from the finder/normal use: troubles will appear later, when installing something new, upgrading an app, uninstalling a driver etc...

Just act as you never used a system on the mac before: forget your experience! If you take care of that, you will then enjoy the real power of OSX: stability, power and true multitasking. You willeven fastly forget what the words 'reboot' or 'sytem crashed' means!

Mac OSX rocks!!!!!!!


HTH