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Removing excess fonts
Authored by: sapridyne on May 08, '04 11:01:32AM

Please do not make your SysAdmin's life miserable by removing or managing fonts yourself. Do yourself a favor and, if you feel ANY hesitation about doing ANY of these steps -- DON'T.

Personally, I suggest that if you're a novice DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING in the System/Library directory. Just don't. If you're in a corporate environment, PLEASE PLEASE consult your tech support before doing something stupid.



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Removing excess fonts
Authored by: montalvd on May 09, '04 11:07:46PM

any sysadmin who allows you to have admin privs deserves to have a life of hell. users should not be logging in as admin.

/System Folder/Fonts should be limited to:
Charcoal
Chicago
Geneva
Monaco

~/Library/Fonts should be empty

/Library/Fonts should be empty

/System/Library/Fonts should only have:

LucidaGrande.dfont
LastResort.dfont
Geneva.dfont
Monaco.dfont
Keyboard.dfont

set up suitcase or fontreserve with an "i-apps" set that includes these two fonts and turn them on when you need to...for instance, to use ichat, etc.:

Helvetica.dfont
HelveticaNeue.dfont

bonus hint...if you're running fontreserve server, you should have a set named precicely: "User System Fonts" which will keep your users' font folders flushed...ymmv (rtfm).

don montalvo, nyc

---
Don, NYC



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Removing excess fonts
Authored by: Jaharmi on May 11, '04 01:41:53PM

I agree with this. Your sys admin should work with you if you think you are having font management problems.

I agree somewhat with the other poster who says that users should not log in with admin privs, but I think that is unrealistic in many settings. At the very least, mobile users will need an admin account (maybe not their own regular account) so that they can adjust to conference/hotel/etc. networks when travelling. Beyond that, in some distributed environments, users may set up their own machines before a sys admin gets to them -- and they get an admin account from the Setup Assistant.

Since it's unrealistic to expect that no one will have access to a Mac OS X admin account, sys admins have to adjust for that eventuality. Running some sort of filesystem maintenance (like Radmind, etc.) is one way to make sure everything is in working order. Or, warn users who tinker that if they tinker too much, they will lose access to their computer while it is being re-imaged and reconfigured for them.

Beyond that, I've seen some sys admins who are more dangerous than their end users ... and I think this thread is an indicator of that. A lot of people try to manage their systems as if they were Mac OS 9, and nowhere is this more apparent than with font management.



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