For All Geeks and Nerdoids:: Finally some useful info on the Net!

OK, Finally Apple has hit the road, and with the support of Microsoft, made a decent operating system, OK fine, OS9 was around when PCs were still loading Me, but hey, XP rules, and OSX is the answer to getting Macs on some similar feeding ground:: Noticeable Updates:: First thing is the multiple user logins on OSX—finally Everyone in the family can all keep their files separate, as in the cool XP login. Back/Forward Navigation:: Finally you can navigate through to a file without having millions of windows open:: Copy/Paste files/folders:: This is probably one of the cooler things about windows OSs, they’ve had this option long before Apple, but OSX has something similar—more basic (no cut), but it is ok, and makes due—At least the cows are eating from the same trough, roughly…

OK—So we bought Jaguar—Definitely a better OS than 10.1, since that came installed on our 2001 iMac, but we never really used it, because it was kind of unstable. Jaguar Rules—I mean would you rather be running an OS called “water” (Aqua) or an OS named after a cool feline?? Anyway, I’m happy with the OS, and so far it’s running smoothly—Good job Apple!

OK—Let’s get down to business:: I wanted to wipe clean the hard drive before installing Jaggy—I have had great results with wiping clean PC hard drive before installing new OSs, here in Tech Support, I format someone’s laptop every other week—it is a solution for screwed up machines—I think if I ever bought a new computer I would reformat and reinstall the stuff myself—All these “Ease of Use” add-ons are usually superfluous (or for a total dummy) and most likely adware related stuff that cuts down on the company’s support costs—Dump that stuff—get it out! Most of it is garbage. A clean computer is like a clean mind—very nice indeed. The worst thing about computers is all the waiting you have to do—downloads, installing, booting up, etc:: If there’s one thing that comes out of the future of computing, I would say, screw the ridiculous add-ons, ok sure, increasing broadband is a reasonable forecast, but we are already at TrueColor basically for graphics, and most of the stuff we do—and will do, is simple Office-related stuff—not very processor consuming if done the right way:: This is what I say to Microsoft/Apple:: I want the computer of 2020 to be instant-on, no lag, no install, this that and the other thing, cut down the wait time, this is improvement!

Luckily, XP and OSX both boot up a lot faster than older OSs (except Win 98/95 which are in a league of their own), but 2000 Pro?? Jeez, we have that installed on all the computers here at school, and man, LAG TIME BONAMUS! Jeez, just to start up it’s ten minutes, to log off, another 5, INSANE. I can’t handle it, I can’t wait ‘till they upgrade to XP—I’ll do the cloning, just buy the licenses!!

OK, enough talk, but here’s my little story of upgrading the iMac we have:: I transferred all our sensitive docs to my Bro’s Firewire drive, and hoping I got everything, reluctantly Initialized the drive. OK—First thing I learned (and I got this from the Web), was that OSX DOES NOT INCLUDE CLASSIC (OS9). Jeez, you’d think that they would sell a complete solution, but I guess Apple figures you should already have the classic OS you want, and of course, limitations provide more selling point for Apple—I’m not criticizing them, it’s just this was unclear, although I think it does say something about this in the Apple guide for setting up Jaguar…

Anyway:: Best way to set up your drive:: I first tried booting up from the Jaguar CD, and looked for the option to perform a clean install, but this option was grayed out—So I booted with my OS 9 CDs, and ran drive setup from there. Wam, 19GBs, zeroed out--…

OK, hoping I had all the backups ready, I booted from the Jaguar CDs, and installed Jaggy—I used custom install and saved myself about 400MGs by not installing the Asian Fonts and Localized files for other languages---I hope this causes no probs. I installed BSD (sic) files too, because I read somewhere a lot of apps use them. But the description said they were only for developers and such, more info on this would be appreciated…

So this was my first mistake. I installed OS 10.2 and now it let me perform a clean installation, Jazzus, Slamus, and this I thought would be good, since OS X probably would have better drivers than OS 9 Drive Setup. Anyway, I was advised to use Mac Extended, since UNIX is only if you are JUST USING OSX. For classic Apps you have to create a separate partition. Maybe it would have been better to make an OSX partition and a Classic one, but who knows who will be storing what where, and it is probably better to make it all universal and fill in the gaps wherever you want…

OK—So this was my mistake—To install OSX BEFORE OS 9. When I installed OS 9 after installing OSX, it deleted some system files in OSX, when I booted back up, I couldn’t open my mouse control panel for one. So I ran the OSX Installer again, and everything was fine. But I wasn’t sure if there would be duplicates in the system, and it made a folder on the hard drive which was called Previous System which I couldn’t delete, even from my master account since I needed ROOT privileges. HOW DO YOU LOG IN AS ROOT, AND WHAT IS THE PASSWORD??

Anyway, to disregard this setup, I decided to start all over again. This time I formatted the hard drive in OS 9, then ran a fresh install, then ran the OS X disks and installed over 9. This is the way you should do it, because OS X can recognize 9, and stay out of it’s way, but 9 is half-retarded, and will replace some essential system files, like the control panels—Gozalis. You figure it out…

So that’s my story, I just wish there had been a clearer explanation about the order in which I should install the OSs. Any help, questions, etc:: gzanecchia@bluemail.ch

©2004 Giovanni L. Zanecchia :: gzanecchia@bluemail.ch