[Phaedon]

Hi everyone,

I am going to be buying a new powerbook this week with a larger hard drive than I ever could have dreamed of on my ibook. I started researching partitioning for various reasons (among which my desire to isntall OS 9 as well) and, as I'm sure you all can imagine, I came across a lot of information pulling in all kinds of directions. I decided I'd better try to start a new post with my specific questions in hopes that the power users out there will advise me. I'm going to number the items I need advice about so that those kind enough to answer can address them one by one or addresss whichever ones they feel they can help me with. Let me also add that though I'm not well versed in the use of the terminal etc., I am happy to follow instructions and experiment (even if first attempts don't succeed). The only version of OS X I plan on running is Tiger.

1) SWAP PARTITION - Is this a serious performance boost? Are there problems it can cause that I should be aware of?! Should I make one?!

2) OS 9 PARTITION - I'm guessing that this is a no-brainer... if I'm going to run OS 9 it needs a partition. But I thought I'd just add it here in case I'm wrong about that.

3) APPLICATIONS PARTITION - It seems to me from what I've read that this one might be more trouble than it's worth. I have no problem with reinstalling applications and I understand that the only benefit of this is not having to reinstall applications after a clean install. It also seems to me that applications should for the most part be paired with the system folder. Am I wrong about this? Most importantly... does this actually provide any serious benefits that I'm overlooking?

4) USERS PARTITION - This one seemed to me to be a useful one. I am a fan of the clean install and if this makes that process easier, it seems to me to be reason enough. Are there other benefits? Are there serious conflicts with tiger?

5) MULTIPLE SYSTEMS - I am considering installing more than one bootable tiger partition. I use VPC and do plan on *trying* to do some development work in an attempt to learn a useful skill. I definitely plan on installing apache/php/mysql. It's my understanding that all of these can benefit from (in the performance sense) running on an otherwise clean partition... as well as preventing me from messing up important files in the other partitions. I also need to know if multiple bootable partitions can share one users folder and perhaps even, one applications folder. It seems a waste to have to have multiple copies of applications in particular. On the flipside... can I completely isolate one tiger partitions so that it does not access settings, applications, personal files from other partitions?

6) LINUX - I really want to play around with Linux! I'm not planning on doing this immediately however. Should I set aside a partition for it?

I guess I should point out that I am well aware that this adds up to more partitions than macs in the world. I probably will wind up choosing what sort of partitioning system works best for me from just a few of these options. I would just like to hear what you all think about all these possibilities first!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH to everyone who has taken the time to read my pleas for information. I look forward to your responses!

[Randman]

I will preface by saying that I have used Macs since the mid 1980s and OSX since its 10.0 beta days and I've never partitioned. I'm not a developer, so I don't need it. Still, I'll try and be fair in my responses.

Originally Posted by Phaedon

1) SWAP PARTITION - Is this a serious performance boost? Are there problems it can cause that I should be aware of?! Should I make one?!

More ram will help you more than anything, including a swap partition.

Originally Posted by Phaedon

2) OS 9 PARTITION - I'm guessing that this is a no-brainer... if I'm going to run OS 9 it needs a partition. But I thought I'd just add it here in case I'm wrong about that.

. If it is actually OS9 that you'll be running, it might be worth it. However, if you mean Classic that comes as an option on OSX to run OS9, then there's no need.

Originally Posted by Phaedon

3) APPLICATIONS PARTITION - It seems to me from what I've read that this one might be more trouble than it's worth. I have no problem with reinstalling applications and I understand that the only benefit of this is not having to reinstall applications after a clean install. It also seems to me that applications should for the most part be paired with the system folder. Am I wrong about this? Most importantly... does this actually provide any serious benefits that I'm overlooking?

There's no need for this. Many people do it as a backup of sorts. However, you should always have a backup that's not on the same hard drive. Other than that, it would be more work than it's worth.

Originally Posted by Phaedon

4) USERS PARTITION - This one seemed to me to be a useful one. I am a fan of the clean install and if this makes that process easier, it seems to me to be reason enough. Are there other benefits? Are there serious conflicts with tiger?

You can do a clean install without partitioning. If you didn't want to partition, you could simply create a new user and sign in if you think something was hosed and want to verify before falling back on the backup.

Originally Posted by Phaedon

5) MULTIPLE SYSTEMS - I am considering installing more than one bootable tiger partition. I use VPC and do plan on *trying* to do some development work in an attempt to learn a useful skill. I definitely plan on installing apache/php/mysql. It's my understanding that all of these can benefit from (in the performance sense) running on an otherwise clean partition... as well as preventing me from messing up important files in the other partitions. I also need to know if multiple bootable partitions can share one users folder and perhaps even, one applications folder. It seems a waste to have to have multiple copies of applications in particular. On the flipside... can I completely isolate one tiger partitions so that it does not access settings, applications, personal files from other partitions?

As a developer, you may want to partition. Of course, if you have an external hard drive, you could make that bootable and use that as well.

Originally Posted by Phaedon

6) LINUX - I really want to play around with Linux! I'm not planning on doing this immediately however. Should I set aside a partition for it?

Not familiar with Linux so I'll leave that one alone.

Also, remember that redoing partitions isn't like in Windows. If you want to adjust sizes or delete a partition, you'd need to reinstall.