How to make Tiger more responsive.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Just a little reviver:

Did you use the customization option with Tiger to not install more than one (or two) languages to save space? I did, but a few minor updates later I felt that my HD space was being eaten away slowly.

So, yesterday I ran OmniDiskSweeper, and was shocked to find that almost all apps had at least 6 localization folders, when they should have max two...

I guess when an application is updated it disregards your localization choices from the install...

So I dug out DeLocalizer 1.1, ran it (works fine, but a bit slow, on 10.4.3) and what do you know, it cleared 702 MB off my disk...

 

[dogbone]

... I don't know how I'm going to get those two gigs back.... but.... I should work on it.

You'll probably get 2 gigs by using 'Monolingual' to trash the unnecessary language files and also clear out the printer drivers (Library>Printers). You can probably throw the whole lot out and just redownload the latest one that you need.

 

[mkrishnan]

You'll probably get 2 gigs by using 'Monolingual' to trash the unnecessary language files and also clear out the printer drivers (Library>Printers). You can probably throw the whole lot out and just redownload the latest one that you need.

Thanks. I should keep that on my list as an option, although I use several languages, and it isn't high on my list. I ended up doing some other things, and I'm in slightly better shape now, and I definitely noticed a corresponding improvement in performance.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Just wanted to add a couple of useful links from The X Lab performance tuning faq:

Problems from Insufficient RAM and Free Hard Disk Space and the related Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk

 

[generik]

Something that I noticed on my PB is that Tiger doesn't seem to recycle space held in VM over time, but instead just keeps paging more and more into the page file.

Is this normal?

There was once when I got my VM as high as 9.7GB!

I can't imagine what will happen if I leave my machine running continuously for weeks... my harddrive will probably run out first

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

There was once when I got my VM as high as 9.7GB!

How many apps (including Widgets, Classic, etc) were you running at the time...???

I've been beetween 6 and 7 at the most, myself...

Also, I've to notices that Tiger isn't too good to let go of HD space used for VM. Which is why I recommend regular restarts to free up HD space every other day. I know Mac OS X is supposed to clean up, and all, but if you're running low on HD space after a couple of days uptime a restart will free a substantial amount of HD space. If you have lots of space I wouldn't bother...

 

[generik]

I don't use classic apps.

I did have the 2 widgets that came with the computer.. a calendar and a clock thingy, as well as having Azureus running, with a few firefox windows, Mail.app, and Eclipse (another java app)

Still it doesn't explain the 9GB figure!

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

...Azureus...

Still it doesn't explain the 9GB figure!

No, but I have a prime suspect...

 

[Hunts121]

I too am a fan of onyx but it is broken with OS 10.4.3, I keep getting weird error messages that I didn't before (others have said the same). Also I wanted to give MainMenu a try as well but it says it only supports up to 10.4.2

 

[dragula53]

I too am a fan of onyx but it is broken with OS 10.4.3, I keep getting weird error messages that I didn't before (others have said the same). Also I wanted to give MainMenu a try as well but it says it only supports up to 10.4.2

the new version of onyx fixes the script error.

 

[mkrishnan]

Also, I've to notices that Tiger isn't too good to let go of HD space used for VM. Which is why I recommend regular restarts to free up HD space every other day. I know Mac OS X is supposed to clean up, and all, but if you're running low on HD space after a couple of days uptime a restart will free a substantial amount of HD space. If you have lots of space I wouldn't bother...

I've noticed this too...it seems to be new / worse with Tiger. Although, then again, I have less HD space free now than I did with Panther.