Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

megasad · May 21, 2004, 01:08 PM

I have my home folder set as a whole other partition, /Volumes/Spunk to be precise, set through NetInfo, and have not had a single problem with this to date.

However, today I tried to install Adobe Illustrator CS. When I try to open the application, it crashes. Always. Something about it scanning fonts, and then it dies. I have installed no fonts on this fresh install of OS X 10.3.3. When I log in to another account, which has the home folder in /Users, Illustrator works fine. When I delete my entire Library folder, on the Spunk partition, it still does not work. When I move my home back to /Users/simon, Illustrator does work.

So, I'm guessing it has to do with the home on different partition thing.

Any ideas how to make this work? Is my only option to not have a separate partition for my home?

madmacgames · May 21, 2004, 03:39 PM

I've moved my home directory before, and found the symbolic link method to really be the best (leave your home dir set to /Users/username and link /Users/username to where the actual dir is).

This method seems the best but MS Office has some problems with it.

I run just a single partition now as it is not really necessary with the archive & install you can do a clean OS install without loosing user data and if you need to backup your user data, it is just as simple as backing up /Users/username.

megasad · May 22, 2004, 09:19 PM

Hokey doke, the only solutions at present seem to be either having the home folder on the same partition as the operating system, or to use Illustrator 10. Back to 10 I go, CS can wait for Adobe to fix it.

madmacgames · May 22, 2004, 09:32 PM

you tried the symbolic link method for moving your home partition and it did not work?

Maflynn · May 23, 2004, 05:36 AM

I have two partitions using the symbolic method and have not incurred any problems in office or photoshop cs.

Mike

madmacgames · May 23, 2004, 09:36 AM

Originally posted by Maflynn:
I have two partitions using the symbolic method and have not incurred any problems in office or photoshop cs.

Don't mean to steal this thread, but by chance have you upgraded Office (not to 2004 but the upgrades of Office X)? When I was using the symbolic link method, the initial install of Office was fine, but when I tried to upgrade, Word would always then crash immediately on launch.

megasad · May 23, 2004, 01:30 PM

Originally posted by madmacgames:
you tried the symbolic link method for moving your home partition and it did not work?

No, it afears me... I've been using the NetInfo method for about two years now and it has worked well for me, with the only problem being the occasional appearance of a Temporary Items folder on my home partition that I quickly made invisible. Tales of Office v.X not working right are also bad. I may try it, but not until next week, when I get the chance.

megasad · May 23, 2004, 01:56 PM

Originally posted by madmacgames:
you tried the symbolic link method for moving your home partition and it did not work?

Okay, so I said next week, but then I tried it just now, in the hopes that it would actually work, but, alas it did not.

Just so I'm clear, I was meant to make a sumbolic link, usin code such as this:

Code:
ln -s /Volumes/Spunk /Users/simon

Then open NetInfo Manager and change my home folder back from /Volumes/Spunk to /Users/simon.

That's what I did, and it seems to be working just as before, no problems with Office v.X... But the exact same problem with Illustrator; it crashes upon launch. I did a fresh install of Illustrator and it still dies.

Oh well.

Maflynn · May 23, 2004, 07:44 PM

Originally posted by madmacgames:
Don't mean to steal this thread, but by chance have you upgraded Office (not to 2004 but the upgrades of Office X)? When I was using the symbolic link method, the initial install of Office was fine, but when I tried to upgrade, Word would always then crash immediately on launch.

Nope installed the full version of Office X.

Mike

megasad · May 30, 2004, 05:48 AM

For no discernable reason, on another Mac with the home folder on a different partition than the operating system, Adobe Illustrator CS works fine. I did everything the same, as far as I can tell, the only difference is that it's a PowerBook rather than an eMac. So, yeah, since I dont really use Illustrator myself, and I was just testing it would work before installing it on the PowerBook, all is well. It would just be nice to know why...