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Install DarwinPorts on a FireWire drive UNIX
As my 30GB iBook hard drive was getting full, I had to clean out a lot of DarwinPorts apps. However, I discovered that you can install DarwinPorts to a FireWire drive, instead of the internal hard drive. When you install a program, the full package will not install, but just use symlinks instead.

Assuming you have a FireWire drive named FireWireDrive, open a Terminal and type:
$ cd /
$ mkdir /Volumes/FireWireDrive/opt
$ ln -s /Volumes/FireWireDrive/opt opt/
Then, install the DarwinPorts package installer. When you want to install other apps, simply type:
$ /opt/local/bin/port install application_name
The install will then place the app on the FireWire drive, not the internal drive. You'll not notice any difference in speed, etc. Now I have 100GB of space for X11 apps!

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one, but it makes sense -- there's no reason that symbolic links shouldn't work...]
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Install DarwinPorts on a FireWire drive | 3 comments | Create New Account
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Install DarwinPorts on a FireWire drive
Authored by: SteMo on Oct 11, '05 10:45:42AM

Well, this works only if nothing else is installed in /opt. If you use Ciscos VPN-Tool it will collide. Maybe e bit better to link to /opt/local not only the /opt.



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Re: Install DarwinPorts on a FireWire drive
Authored by: blb on Oct 11, '05 12:51:37PM

Another alternative is to install from source; when you run configure, you can specify an alternate install location and not have to deal with symlinks at all.



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Install DarwinPorts on a FireWire drive
Authored by: smilec on Oct 12, '05 12:12:46AM

FWIW, the same applies to fink packages which I installed on my 250 GB FireWire Drive to supplement applications on my 20 GB iBook. Just soft link

sudo ln -s /Volumes/FireWireDrive/sw /sw

To use fink with my new G5 as well I created separate fink directories, shared the src directories and linked them differently from the two machines

me@imac > mkdir /Volumes/FireWireDrive/sw-G3
me@imac > mkdir /Volumes/FireWireDrive/sw-G3
me@imac > ln -sf /Volumes/FireWireDrive/sw-G3/src
/Volumes/FireWireDrive/sw-G5/src
me@imac >ln -sf /Volumes/FireWireDrive/sw-G5 /sw
me@ibook >ln -sf Volumes/FireWireDrive/sw-G3 /sw



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