I suggested this in another forum and was asked to detail the process. I have three PDF documents that detail the actual steps, however I cannot upload those types of documents. If anyone wants copies, I will forward them directly. I followed Andy Moraitis procedures, many thanks to him for blazing the trail. You can get two of the documents at Andy's web site. The third details all the steps necessary to configure a new TiBook.
http://homepage.mac.com/andymoraitis
OSX Swap Information and More
The process involves initializing your disk, so the first step is backing up EVERYTHING, preferably to another disk drive. There are two possible configurations: 1 disk drive or 2 disk drives. I am on a powerbook so the 1 disk drive is what I used. The 2 disk drive configuration is more desirable.
1 Disk Drive
1) Backup drive to be partitioned
2) Boot from another drive or CD in OS9 - this is important because OS X drive utility will not initialize a drive smaller than 2 GB
3) Start Drive setup from the boot drive or CD
4) Initialize the drive with 2 partitions - you select partitions after you select the drive and click initialize, I believe the button is called OPTIONS or CUSTOMIZE.
a) Partition 1 should be between 500 and 1 GB, this will be the swap partition. The PDF recommends 500, I did that and with 320M installed RAM have run up against the limit a couple of times running VPC. This is not a fatal error, you just have to quit a few applications
. Selecting the size of the partition is a little counterintuitive. The more RAM you have, the less swap space you probably need, see the discussion below. It also depends upon which applications you use. VPC is a REAL hog. In configuring new TiBooks (512M RAM) for the office I have elected to use a 1 GB swap out of a 30 GB HD.
b) Partition 2 should be the rest of the hard drive - I prefer 1 partition for OS9 and OSX together. There are a lot of philosphies out there, and I have changed my over time, this is pretty much a personal choice.
5) Reinstall OS9
6) Reinstall OSX
7) Boot OSX
8) Follow the instructions in the attached PDFs
The only difference in 2 Drives is that you put the swap partition on the drive that OSX is NOT installed on. Thus when OSX is booted, it can access the other disk drive while still accessing systems files in parallel. Actually, I do use this option with my PB since I have purchased an expansion bay drive
I just configured 3 TiBooks for folks at my office [I'm in line a little later]. The whole process took less than 2.5 hours, partly because I am on a cable modem for download. The third PDF document describes the process I used.
You should see a 10-20% improvement in speed, the more apps you use the more improvement because you only really use VM then. You should understand how OSX VM works, it really is the best system I have seen (compared to standard Unix and OS9).
OSX VM automatically and dynamically allocates file space for VM. At startup it allocates ONE 80M swapfile. It ONLY allocates additional space when it exceeds available swap and physical memory. In standard unix, you must allocate all swap space manually and if you run out of swap space tooo bad (actually it is possible to add swap on some flavors of unix manually while the system is running). On OS9, you set it before hand and the system allocates that size block on your HD, it is constantly using that space which is why OS9 runs faster with VM off and enough RAM.
Good Luck!!
http://homepage.mac.com/andymoraitis
OSX Swap Information and More
The process involves initializing your disk, so the first step is backing up EVERYTHING, preferably to another disk drive. There are two possible configurations: 1 disk drive or 2 disk drives. I am on a powerbook so the 1 disk drive is what I used. The 2 disk drive configuration is more desirable.
1 Disk Drive
1) Backup drive to be partitioned
2) Boot from another drive or CD in OS9 - this is important because OS X drive utility will not initialize a drive smaller than 2 GB
3) Start Drive setup from the boot drive or CD
4) Initialize the drive with 2 partitions - you select partitions after you select the drive and click initialize, I believe the button is called OPTIONS or CUSTOMIZE.
a) Partition 1 should be between 500 and 1 GB, this will be the swap partition. The PDF recommends 500, I did that and with 320M installed RAM have run up against the limit a couple of times running VPC. This is not a fatal error, you just have to quit a few applications
. Selecting the size of the partition is a little counterintuitive. The more RAM you have, the less swap space you probably need, see the discussion below. It also depends upon which applications you use. VPC is a REAL hog. In configuring new TiBooks (512M RAM) for the office I have elected to use a 1 GB swap out of a 30 GB HD.b) Partition 2 should be the rest of the hard drive - I prefer 1 partition for OS9 and OSX together. There are a lot of philosphies out there, and I have changed my over time, this is pretty much a personal choice.
5) Reinstall OS9
6) Reinstall OSX
7) Boot OSX
8) Follow the instructions in the attached PDFs
The only difference in 2 Drives is that you put the swap partition on the drive that OSX is NOT installed on. Thus when OSX is booted, it can access the other disk drive while still accessing systems files in parallel. Actually, I do use this option with my PB since I have purchased an expansion bay drive
I just configured 3 TiBooks for folks at my office [I'm in line a little later
]. The whole process took less than 2.5 hours, partly because I am on a cable modem for download. The third PDF document describes the process I used.You should see a 10-20% improvement in speed, the more apps you use the more improvement because you only really use VM then. You should understand how OSX VM works, it really is the best system I have seen (compared to standard Unix and OS9).
OSX VM automatically and dynamically allocates file space for VM. At startup it allocates ONE 80M swapfile. It ONLY allocates additional space when it exceeds available swap and physical memory. In standard unix, you must allocate all swap space manually and if you run out of swap space tooo bad (actually it is possible to add swap on some flavors of unix manually while the system is running). On OS9, you set it before hand and the system allocates that size block on your HD, it is constantly using that space which is why OS9 runs faster with VM off and enough RAM
.Good Luck!!
