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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: morphis on Oct 31, '03 10:49:48AM

This Works on Panther. Have not yet tried 10.2.x -> 10.3, will probely need to unlink mount points before upgrade and replace old apple apps with the new one and relink mount points. I will be doing this one on monday fingers crossed. Will post more.



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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: jason.clark on Nov 02, '03 02:16:34AM

I got this to mostly work on Panther, with some issues.

  • in /etc/rc, the comments used to find the swap dir setting have changed to: echo "Starting virtual memory"
  • the text of the 'dynamic pager' command has also changed
  • After the reboot from single user mode, my extra partitions weren't hidden. I re-edited /etc/rc and moved the commands (SetFile) to the end of the file, just before SystemStarter.
  • Even with the extra partitions hidden on the desktop, they remain in the new sidebar in finder. To fix this, use Finder Prefs:Sidebar, uncheck Hard disks, check Computer. Close prefs. Use the Computer Icon in the sidebar to see your drives. Drag your main drive (the one seen on the desktop) into the sidebar. You can now turn off the Computer icon in the sidebar if you like.
  • I don't think the swap file change took. I saw a msg during boot abt swap file problem; not sure of the details. Didn't see any files in /swap/.vm. Another look at /etc/rc shows that if the swap dir is missing, it should get created. So I removed .vm from /swap and rebooted. .vm was not created. Not sure what to try next, suggestions welcomed


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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: jason.clark on Nov 02, '03 02:21:27AM

Forgot to mention... when viewing the contents of your main drive in finder, the relocated folders (Applications, Users, swap) have a different icon. Its the network icon, with a shortcut arrow attached. I find this annoying, but have found no workaround.



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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: Craig Jones on Dec 03, '03 12:25:54PM
At least on my system, I have figured out why I couldn't get swap to work. The mount -vat nfs command wouldn't mount the LABEL= diskname partitions, and NetInfo is apparently not up far enough for /Swap to be mounted. (I suspect this is part of the trouble when using Apple updates--they look to rely on fstab working right, so I may change the suggestion of using the Labels to using the /dev/disk0sxx format in /etc/fstab). So I adapted some of the notes posted elsewhere for Panther to get this to work. Note that I have /Swap as slice 10 on my machine (one way to see this, in the Terminal, run df -k to see the positions of your partitions), so replace disk0s10 with whatever you use locally. Go down in /etc/rc to where swapdir is set and make it

swapdir=/Swap/vm
(or /Swap/.vm if you so desire, just be sure you are consistent) After the netboot check, insert this:

#Make sure swap is put on the partition
umount -v /Swap 
#above avoids accidents
if [ -d /Swap ]; then
  rm -rf /Swap
#this flushes junk accidentally put on root drive
fi
mkdir /Swap
#now mount the Swap partition
/sbin/mount_hfs /dev/disk0s10 /Swap
sleep 1
There is now a chunk of text that tests for the swapfile existing and cleans out any left over swapfiles. After that are "dynamic_pager" and appprofile commands. Change these to:

dynamic_pager -F ${swapdir}/swapfile

appprofiledir=${swapdir}/app_profile
Make these modifications and otherwise use the instructions above in this tip and you should get swap to work.

Note that it can seem as though you are making swapfiles on Swap even when you are not: if /Swap is not mounted when /etc/rc is running, a directory you cannot see is created under your /Swap mount. This leads to really odd things: if you do a global search from the Finder for "swapfil" (visible and invisible), you will turn up the current swapdir files shown with a parent of vm (or .vm), but clicking on the file to see the full path locks up the Finder, apparently because the directory isn't accessible from the Finder (nor indeed from Unix until you unmount the Swap partition).

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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: rrrichie on Nov 19, '03 10:56:17AM

Applied this to panther, and worked well at first. I even installed panther a second time after the partitions were in place. (first I forgot to leave out all the world languages... ;-) ). With the swap, application, and user partition in place doing a clean install is a breeze.
BUT. Updating iTunes didn't work and some applications don't work. It seems some access the system folder by going "up" a folder and then into /library for example. But of course if the application is in the application partition going up a folder haves it end up in the /volumes folder. This was test by creating a folder with applications and putting symbolic links in a folder above it to /library. Then the app worked fine. Installing iTunes destroyed the symbolic link to /volumes/applications and a new applications folder was in place with only iTunes in it.
So i'm going to combine the application partition again (using fdisk) with al the system stuff creating a "system" and a "users" partition.



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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: bluehz on Nov 19, '03 07:01:05PM

When installing stuff - just point the installer to your root (System disk). If you have setup your mountpoint system properly with mountpoints for your /Applications located on the root disk - then as far as the system is concerned that /Applications dir is essentially grafted onto /root disk and appears as a normal unpartitioned OS X setup. I have never had any trouble with installers. I did used to point my installers to my /Applications partition though and then realized it wasn't even necessary.



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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: rrrichie on Nov 20, '03 10:48:43PM

Yep, I do that and for most apps it works fine. But the iTunes 4.1 update failed (it created a new applications folder, so i dittod it to the applications slice and it works now), I can't any of the pro-apps to work, but haven't dug into yet. And my keyspan digital remote doesn't work either. It install fine, but complains about not being installed properly. I still have to sort that out.
Maybe my links aren't solid enough. :-) In niutil the mountpoints are there to the slices with the labels applications and user. and i created the links on the root drive as in the instructions.
Point is, it seems that it's taking more trouble to install apps now, than having the advantage of a seperate apps partition.



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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: Craig Jones on Dec 02, '03 05:18:58PM

Made the mistake of trying to upgrade to Panther over the existing mount points. Things *seemed* to be working, but then I found that things like Terminal, Console, and X11 were not working. After some panic, I found that the upgrade did not follow the link to the Applications partition and these older versions of the applications don't run (either well or at all) under Panther. Copying over these apps from another system allows them to work, but some others are a bit more difficult to deal with. As previous upgraders from Apple have also had trouble with the Applications partition, I wonder if making a separate Applications partition is getting to be a bad idea. Does anybody have any positive results in getting the mounts to be followed by Apple's installers?



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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: vonleigh on Feb 18, '04 01:32:41PM

Craig and wizwoz,

When booting up from another partition or disk (as is the case when installing the upgrade to panther), the partitions do not get mounted, as the fstab file isn't read. This is why the applications didn't get updated in craig's case, and why you don't need to unlink anything in wizwoz' case.

Now, this is an advantage of this system. What you should be doing is the following:

Since you have your Users and Applications separate from your OS partition, essentially this means that there shouldn't be anything important left in the OS partition, especially if you've gotten into the habit of installing items in your user ~/Library for example. In any case, if there is something installed in your OS, it's a good idea to get the latest version and make sure there aren't any compatibility problems.

Anyway, since there is nothing important in the OS partition, when upgrading panther one can tell the installer to erase the whole partition (you have backups right?). Notice that since your /Users and /Applications are now unlinked (since you booted off the CD), it will only delete your base OS install.

This way you are guaranteed a fresh OS with everything working perfectly.

After that, you copy over any new/updated applications back to your /Applications partition, create your users (in the same order you created them before, so they have the same UID, or if you're advanced enough do some terminal trickery); and by relinking everything you should be good to go, with both a fresh OS and all your settings, documents, applications, etc. Best of both worlds.


v



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Panther Compatiblity
Authored by: wizwoz on Jan 07, '04 10:01:38AM

I implemented this hint way back when, and loved it until I did the Panther upgrade - disaster! After restoring from backup, it's back and still works - but how would I unlink Applications and Users so they once again exist in the boot volume as real subdirectories?



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