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Floyde · Mar 14, 2005, 02:32 PM

Hiya...

I was told by a mate, who was the main instigator in getting me to change from PC to Mac, that having load sof folders on the desktop would slow up my PB and to just have alias folders.

Is this right?

cpac · Mar 14, 2005, 03:00 PM

I don't know why having a lot of files on your desktop would slow things down - it might take a second longer to display the desktop when you first log in or something, but after that I don't see any reason it should be slower...

Detrius · Mar 14, 2005, 05:10 PM

Aliases won't make any difference. The idea is to not have a bunch of icons on your desktop, as this can increase screen redraw rates.

I haven't personally been able to tell a difference, but some people say they can.

electropura · Mar 14, 2005, 08:56 PM

It was more of a big deal on Mac OS 9 and earlier, as there used to be something called a Desktop database, that could become corrupted on occasion...especially if you had lots of stuff on your desktop. In fact, I actually have seen an error message on Mac OS8 that said "Your Desktop Is Full"...so apparently there was a limit it could handle.

I would not be overly concerned about it with OSX, unless you are putting huge amounts of data there...I have left disk images for dvd projects on the desktop (several GB) on the desktop without any ill effects.

Detrius · Mar 14, 2005, 09:32 PM

Originally posted by electropura:
It was more of a big deal on Mac OS 9 and earlier, as there used to be something called a Desktop database, that could become corrupted on occasion...especially if you had lots of stuff on your desktop. In fact, I actually have seen an error message on Mac OS8 that said "Your Desktop Is Full"...so apparently there was a limit it could handle.

I would not be overly concerned about it with OSX, unless you are putting huge amounts of data there...I have left disk images for dvd projects on the desktop (several GB) on the desktop without any ill effects.

The desktop database was something completely different. It had nothing to with the desktop, actually.

Also, the size of the files on your desktop is also completely irrelevant--it's the number of files that is important.

tooki · Mar 14, 2005, 09:36 PM

Detrius hit the nail on the head, twice.

tooki

electropura · Mar 14, 2005, 11:32 PM

"The desktop database was something completely different. It had nothing to with the desktop, actually.

Also, the size of the files on your desktop is also completely irrelevant--it's the number of files that is important."

Thanks for setting the record straight. Sorry for my erroneous post.

Floyde · Mar 15, 2005, 08:23 AM

Originally posted by electropura:
"Also, the size of the files on your desktop is also completely irrelevant--it's the number of files that is important."

Ok... but important why? and is this jsut in reference to Mac OS9?

Cheers

Mediaman_12 · Mar 15, 2005, 05:48 PM

It was just an OS9 thing. The 'Desktop' in OS9 was quite a complex place, if a file was on 'the desktop' it could be in a multiple of places, 'on the desktop' on the main HD, 'on the desktop' on a external or secondary disk, 'on the desktop' on that removable disk, etc. All disks had 'desktops' and all these items would appear on the single Desktop. And yes if you had loads of stuff on The Desktop it could get corrupted as it was in a 'special' hidden folder, that the OS had to keep track of, and this bogged down the OS. The idea with only having alias' on the desktop is that if it got corrupted (which it sometimes did) you wouldn't loose anything.
OSX is totally different the Desktop folder is no longer hidden and only exists in one place, in the uses home folder, removable drives and the like no longer have there own desktops, and as it is a 'more' normal place storing 100's of files there is no longer a problem

Chuckit · Mar 15, 2005, 05:58 PM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
It was just an OS9 thing. The 'Desktop' in OS9 was quite a complex place, if a file was on 'the desktop' it could be in a multiple of places, 'on the desktop' on the main HD, 'on the desktop' on a external or secondary disk, 'on the desktop' on that removable disk, etc. All disks had 'desktops' and all these items would appear on the single Desktop. And yes if you had loads of stuff on The Desktop it could get corrupted as it was in a 'special' hidden folder, that the OS had to keep track of, and this bogged down the OS. The idea with only having alias' on the desktop is that if it got corrupted (which it sometimes did) you wouldn't loose anything.

I think you're confusing the desktop database with the desktop. I can't imagine how the desktop could get "corrupted" without damaging your file system.

Detrius · Mar 15, 2005, 06:30 PM

Originally posted by Floyde:
Ok... but important why? and is this jsut in reference to Mac OS9?

Cheers

In theory, it's important just because each icon is an extra layer that needs to be calculated and an extra image that needs to be stored in memory. I believe that with Quartz Extreme, it's far less important, as the calculations no longer take up processor time, though each icon would be permanently resident in RAM. That's just my theory though. As far as which OS it affects, I would expect it to affect all OSes, Windows included. Whether or not the difference is noticeable depends on the situation.

Detrius · Mar 15, 2005, 06:32 PM

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I think you're confusing the desktop database with the desktop. I can't imagine how the desktop could get "corrupted" without damaging your file system.

precisely, as the desktop is still just a folder. The desktop database kept track of icons, comments, and which document types were associated with which applications.

ClaraT · Mar 16, 2005, 08:31 AM

Originally posted by Detrius:
Aliases won't make any difference. The idea is to not have a bunch of icons on your desktop, as this can increase screen redraw rates.

I haven't personally been able to tell a difference, but some people say they can.

Glad I browsed around here because I was going to post a question about why my ibook has become slow when launching. I do have a cluttered desktop but it's mostly word files, pdf's--no games, movies, etc. I'm getting the spinning beach ball a lot--even when closing windows (Office 2004 has ALWAYS been slow).

If I clean the desktop up, delete files do you think that will help? Also can I trash those ".dmg" icons after I've installed the program? Would appreciate some guidelines on what to keep and what to throw after installing software.

thanks,

clarat

ibook, G4 800

cpac · Mar 16, 2005, 09:17 AM

yes, you can definitely get rid of the .dmg s after you've installed the software.

Why not dump all your .pdfs and word files into the documents folder?

It can't hurt to try this, though unless your desktop is *really really* cluttered it doesn't sound like cleaning it up should make much of a performance difference overall.

ClaraT · Mar 16, 2005, 10:38 AM

Originally posted by cpac:
yes, you can definitely get rid of the .dmg s after you've installed the software.

Why not dump all your .pdfs and word files into the documents folder?

It can't hurt to try this, though unless your desktop is *really really* cluttered it doesn't sound like cleaning it up should make much of a performance difference overall.

Thanks.

Will follow your advice on the documents folder--can't hurt.

clarat

Millennium · Mar 16, 2005, 01:43 PM

If you have "Show Item Info" checked in the Desktop's View Options panel, then you can in fact suffer a slight speed hit, because the Finder has to look in each folder to find out how many items are in them. The Finder doesn't do this for aliases, so yes, there would be a slight speed boost from using an alias instead of a folder.

This said, I have "Show Item Info" checked for my own Desktop -I find it to be very useful, particularly when dealing with disks and with images- and I have never noticed any problems. The speed hit is so small as to be unnoticeable, even on my G4/400 TiBook. If your machine is very old, then it might be worth looking into, but I wouldn't bother otherwise.