10.3 and 10.4 on different partitions

At 7:16 AM -0800 2006/02/02, Roger Henriques wrote:
>I've ordered a new laptop (G4 - due to software and other issues with
>the Intel book) to replace my ancient tiBook. for the last half-year
>or so, I've used OSX 10.4 on a desktop, but kept my laptop in 10.3,
>mostly for web development work. I had a lot of trouble getting the
>Apache/PHP/mySQL and and some legacy software to work right (for me)
>after upgrading from 10.2, and never bothered to try it again in 10.4.
>
>I'd like to go back to doing everything on my new laptop, and my
>question is whether I can set up 10.4 on one partition, and 10.3 on
>another on the same disc - and reboot as required, or will I have
>problems with this setup?

        I've been doing this with betas on a 10gb partition for a
while. A couple gotchas. Swap files go on the boot partition, so you
always want a few gbytes free. 10-12gb for a Tiger partition is okay,
if you don't add much software to it.

        To keep myself sane, I only install in /Applications on my
larger/production partition. I drag this into the sidebar for access
on the small/test partition.

        To avoid having different home directories -- which would be
wasteful, inconvenient, and confusing -- I log into the small
partition as root (or via CLI would work as well), move aside its
/Users/pepper, and then "ln -s /Volumes/largepartition/Users/pepper
/Users/pepper", to replace it with a symlink to the real
/Users/pepper on the large partition

        This isolates me from most of the disorientation of switching
between platforms, and works very well. As a bonus, I can safely
Erase & Install on the small partition, without losing data or
software.

[Just be sure WHICH partition you Erase & Install to. I recently hosed my home directory partition while clicking through the installer, very proud of myself for having used such a clever scheme. A few minutes later my howls of anquish had heads popping out of office doors all through the building. -Andrew ]


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

> I realise that I could redo any config changes to work in 10.4, but
> I'm in the middle of 4 web projects at the moment, and would rather
> not disturb anything until they are finished...
>
> Any advice would be appreciated,

Watch out for aliased files. When you partition your new computer, give
the 10.3 partition the same name as your current computer hard drive and
give the new 10.4 partition another name. Otherwise you'd get lost at
times as the system resolves alias' in strange ways.

To see if the new machine will boot 10.3, boot the older system in
target mode, plug it into the new computer, boot new with option, then
see if it will go. I'd also run the 10.3.9 combo updater on the old
system to make sure ALL the latest files are on it.

 
 

On 3 Feb 2006, at 16:24, David Ross wrote:
> Watch out for aliased files. When you partition your new computer, give
> the 10.3 partition the same name as your current computer hard drive and
> give the new 10.4 partition another name. Otherwise you'd get lost at
> times as the system resolves alias' in strange ways.

I could use some help with a similar scenario. I have 10.4 on one
internal disc and 10.3 on another. I tend to save things to the
desktop and only noticed yesterday that a lot of things are missing
from my computer. Or so I thought. It turns out that certain
applications, when asking where I want to save, have been referencing
the 10.3 Desktop, not the one I use most in 10.4. I thought iit would
be a simple matter of rebooting in 10.3 and collecting the missing
files (which show up in the 10.3 disc desktop when sought in
Spotlight). Unfortunately I have a slightly different ID for the two
systems, so when I get there the desktop is apparently empty. Gah!

So I need to find a way of mining through the permissions to get to
those files and I am rather stuck. Ideally I would like to be able to
set permissions so I can just go to the folders in the 10.3 OS when
in 10.4 but, given that I do not see a need now to have 10.3 I just
want to find a way of getting the files and then "un blessing" the OS
so I can chuck it out bar a few backed up files in prefs etc. which I
may need again in a future system. Can anyone help me please?

TIA

Drew

On or about 2/6/06 7:04 AM, thus spake "Andrew Rodger"
<leasburnstudiof2s.com>:

> On 3 Feb 2006, at 16:24, David Ross wrote:
>> Watch out for aliased files. When you partition your new computer, give
>> the 10.3 partition the same name as your current computer hard drive and
>> give the new 10.4 partition another name. Otherwise you'd get lost at
>> times as the system resolves alias' in strange ways.
>
> I could use some help with a similar scenario. I have 10.4 on one
> internal disc and 10.3 on another. I tend to save things to the
> desktop and only noticed yesterday that a lot of things are missing
> from my computer. Or so I thought. It turns out that certain
> applications, when asking where I want to save, have been referencing
> the 10.3 Desktop, not the one I use most in 10.4. I thought iit would
> be a simple matter of rebooting in 10.3 and collecting the missing
> files (which show up in the 10.3 disc desktop when sought in
> Spotlight). Unfortunately I have a slightly different ID for the two
> systems, so when I get there the desktop is apparently empty. Gah!
>
> So I need to find a way of mining through the permissions to get to
> those files and I am rather stuck. Ideally I would like to be able to
> set permissions so I can just go to the folders in the 10.3 OS when
> in 10.4 but, given that I do not see a need now to have 10.3 I just
> want to find a way of getting the files and then "un blessing" the OS
> so I can chuck it out bar a few backed up files in prefs etc. which I
> may need again in a future system. Can anyone help me please?

I'm not understanding the problem perfectly (how can the desktop be
"apparently empty"?). But there is no need to reboot. Stay booted in 10.4
and open the Desktop of the 10.3 user. The Desktop is not special; it is
just a folder. So, it is

/Volumes/<otherVolName>/Users/<otherUserName>/Desktop

Now just copy the files across. If you have no permission see the files in
that Desktop folder, then in the Finder's Get Info, select the other volume
and check the "Ignore permissions" checkbox. You might need to reboot in
order to get the Finder to see the other volume with permissions ignored. m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = matttidbits.com, http://www.tidbits.com/matt/
pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei
AppleScript: the Definitive Guide -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005571/somethingsbymatt
Take Control of Word 2004, Tiger, and more -
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html
Subscribe to TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.tidbits.com/

On 6 Feb 2006, at 23:02, Matt Neuburg wrote:

> I'm not understanding the problem perfectly (how can the desktop be
> "apparently empty"?). But there is no need to reboot. Stay booted
> in 10.4
> and open the Desktop of the 10.3 user. The Desktop is not special;
> it is
> just a folder. So, it is
>
> /Volumes/<otherVolName>/Users/<otherUserName>/Desktop
>
> Now just copy the files across. If you have no permission see the
> files in
> that Desktop folder, then in the Finder's Get Info, select the
> other volume
> and check the "Ignore permissions" checkbox. You might need to
> reboot in
> order to get the Finder to see the other volume with permissions
> ignored. m.


Matt, thanks for getting back to me.

It was a very odd situation where
Spotlight identified the files I had saved to Desktop and that they
had been inadvertently saved to the Desktop on the Other HD/Other OS/
etc.... However, if I opened the Desktop on the Other disc there was
nothing there....! I presumed this was because I had a different
short name when booted on that volume and thus was not allowed to see
these files but the files were created in the current boot
environment, so I could not really see why this was. I tried moving
the Desktop folder out of the Other OS environs but it made no
difference but.... putting it back had the effect of making that
short name user appear in the boot volume list of users. Totally
confused but rather pleased to find that I could there access my
files I was able to take them out and then, by changing permissions
to the short name of the boot volume, systematically dismantle and
destroy the OS on the Other HD. It was all very baffling and I wonder
what is the best way to arrange things when you have two OSs on
separate partitions or drives to avoid all this puzzling behaviour.

Sorry if this is not terribly clear (or interesting :0)

Drew

> So I need to find a way of mining through the permissions to get to
> those files and I am rather stuck. Ideally I would like to be able to
> set permissions so I can just go to the folders in the 10.3 OS when
> in 10.4 but, given that I do not see a need now to have 10.3 I just
> want to find a way of getting the files and then "un blessing" the OS
> so I can chuck it out bar a few backed up files in prefs etc. which I
> may need again in a future system. Can anyone help me please?
>
Hmmm. To fix ongoing issues, use TinkerTool to set the system so that
all new user files are readable and changeable by everyone. (Note that
this is certainly not the way to go in all situations, especially an
office.)

To fix current files, you can use BatChmod which is a graphical front
end to the CLI tool.

To change how owns the files, you can use the CLI chown.

Long term if you do this again, you'll be sure to make your userids
match up. :) (I've been burned by this also.)

No note that chmod and chown can FUBAR things in a major way if applied
to other than your user files.

> it is nothing compared to me trying to edit Apache
> config files in vi or emacs -

Of course you could use the free TextWrangler (or BBEdit). Even
handles editing protected files by asking for a password.

At 7:04 AM -0800 2006/02/06, Andrew Rodger wrote:
>
>So I need to find a way of mining through the permissions to get to
>those files and I am rather stuck. Ideally I would like to be able to
>set permissions so I can just go to the folders in the 10.3 OS when
>in 10.4 but, given that I do not see a need now to have 10.3 I just
>want to find a way of getting the files and then "un blessing" the OS
>so I can chuck it out bar a few backed up files in prefs etc. which I
>may need again in a future system. Can anyone help me please?

        Simplest is probably to boot from your 'real' system, select
your 'old' home directory on the other partition in the Finder, Get
Info, and expand Ownership & Permissions at the bottom of the window.
I think you can click the lock, change Owner to your 'real' short
name, and "Apply to enclosed items..."

        If this works, you'll then be able to just copy the stuff you want.


                                                Chris
PS-For Matt's suggestion, I suspect Ignore Permissions changes are
instantaenous, but in any case unmounting and remounting (with Disk
Utility) should do the trick.
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

On or about 2/7/06 8:49 PM, thus spake "Andrew Rodger"
<leasburnstudiof2s.com>:

> and I wonder
> what is the best way to arrange things when you have two OSs on
> separate partitions or drives to avoid all this puzzling behaviour

All I can tell you is that I have two OSs on separate partitions and I don't
have *any* puzzling behavior. I am not understanding what happened on your
machine. The fact that saving to desktop would save to the wrong desktop
suggests, on its own, that something much deeper is/was wrong. m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = matttidbits.com, http://www.tidbits.com/matt/
pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei
AppleScript: the Definitive Guide -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005571/somethingsbymatt
Take Control of Word 2004, Tiger, and more -
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html
Subscribe to TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.tidbits.com/

On 9 Feb 2006, at 15:14, Matt Neuburg wrote:

>> and I wonder
>> what is the best way to arrange things when you have two OSs on
>> separate partitions or drives to avoid all this puzzling behaviour
>
> All I can tell you is that I have two OSs on separate partitions
> and I don't
> have *any* puzzling behavior. I am not understanding what happened
> on your
> machine. The fact that saving to desktop would save to the wrong
> desktop
> suggests, on its own, that something much deeper is/was wrong. m.

Well it all seems OK now (touching wood, crossing fingers etc). The
reason the first problem arose I took to be a direct result of the
salvaging of old info, for the later OS, from the earlier boot drive.
That is, taking applications and, in a few cases, their associated
preferences from Disc1/OS10.3/Users/Drew1 etc. and putting them in
Disc2/OS10.4/Users/Drew2 etc brought about the situation where, even
though working on a application on Disc2 as Drew2, the desktop save
path was remembered as being to Drew1 on Disc1. Which is fair
enough. However, the bit which puzzled me was the subsequent
behaviour in that, booted as Drew 2, I could not see files created as
Drew2's when they were saved to the Drew1 desktop and, when trying to
overcome this, as an assumed permissions problem, I seemed to lose
the files in a netherworld as, bootng as Drew1 did not allow me to
see the files because, I presume, the creator of the files was not
Drew1!

However, the really weird bit was then finding that Drew1 then popped
up as a user next to Drew2 when rebooted in Disc2 OS10.4, with access
to my files, even though I was logged in as Drew2, not Drew1.

It's all rather confusing really.

I suppose I answered my own question though. In as much as one should
not do what I did. Had I not made the error in the first place none
of this would have been an issue but it may serve as a warning :0]

How are your two OSs configured? Do you have the same users for both
OSs and do you create documents in both partitions and save them to
their respective places and do you have permissions set to any one
user or system?

Cheers

Drew

On or about 2/10/06 5:11 AM, thus spake "Andrew Rodger"
<leasburnstudiof2s.com>:

> the desktop save
> path was remembered as being to Drew1 on Disc1. Which is fair
> enough.

No, it isn't "fair enough"! :-) That just doesn't happen. If it can happen,
there was/is something terribly wrong with your user. You have only one
Desktop folder and it is very clear what folder it is. Saving to the wrong
Desktop folder is not normal or even explicable. I've never heard of such a
thing.

> However, the bit which puzzled me was the subsequent
> behaviour in that, booted as Drew 2, I could not see files created as
> Drew2's when they were saved to the Drew1 desktop and, when trying to
> overcome this, as an assumed permissions problem, I seemed to lose
> the files in a netherworld as, bootng as Drew1 did not allow me to
> see the files because, I presume, the creator of the files was not
> Drew1!


[Insert Twilight Zone soundtrack here... :-) -Adam]


I keep saying, without, apparently, carrying any conviction to you, that
this just isn't right. I don't know what happened on your machine, but your
description doesn't communicate anything to me. Things just don't work the
way you keep saying. Permissions / ownership can't make a file invisible! I
can give you a document; it will not vanish just because you're not me!
Permissions on a *folder* can keep you from being allowed to open that
folder and see into it, but if you *can* see into it, its contents do not
twinkle like stars depending on who you are.

> How are your two OSs configured? Do you have the same users for both
> OSs and do you create documents in both partitions and save them to
> their respective places and do you have permissions set to any one
> user or system?

This doesn't matter. My OSs are not "configured". It just works. I'm sorry
you had a bad experience and that I can't explain it, but I assure you that
there is nothing to know or to worry about. Documents and applications live
promiscuously all over both partitions, as if the partitions weren't there.
The partitions exist (and matter) only so I can boot into a different system
sometimes. m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = matttidbits.com, http://www.tidbits.com/matt/
pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei
AppleScript: the Definitive Guide -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005571/somethingsbymatt
Take Control of Word 2004, Tiger, and more -
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html
Subscribe to TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.tidbits.com/

If you have two partitions (or discs) on which you want to install
two different OSXs, have you used / does one use the same ID (short
name and password)? I remain slightly troubled that a combination of
using a different ID, plus an IMAP connection to a .mac account + two
different Address Books with different "Me"s might have set things
off on a bad footing but I am talking Voodoo now, not logic (don't
say it)

and

Do they then exist side by side with their own desktop folders and
libraries etc.?

And if so, are you saying that you can access anything anywhere and
all things are visible and I will not then need to adjust permissions
because the ID is "common".

If I am being ponderous about this I apologize. I know it is straying
a way from the initial posting but, as remedial measures will
probably involve reinstalling one or other system, I might as well
have a better idea of what to expect when I do and, you never know,
it may help someone else who plays their computer by ear :0)

Drew

> On 2006-02-10 05:11:07 -0800, Andrew Rodger <leasburnstudiof2s.com> said:
>
> How are your two OSs configured? Do you have the same users for both
> OSs and do you create documents in both partitions and save them to
> their respective places and do you have permissions set to any one
> user or system?

I set up my friend's computer with three partitions. One holds Tiger;
another, Panther. The third is mounted by both systems at /Users. As
expected, in the beginning, there were a few quirks sharing home
directories between the two versions of OS X, like items disappearing
from the dock. Overall, however, things works ok, and she avoids the
annoyance of having to maintain separate home directories.

I just wanted to mention that I began editing my Apache files in SubethaEdit, as a n00b, because those were the instructions I found for setting up a virtual server (staging.) Actually, I began with WebControl, which checks your syntax before you save any changes.

I find this far less confusing--and while it is no doubt heresy, dealing with these files as "documents" has made sense of the whole thing, for me. Yeah, I've done it in CLI, but dealing with Apache directives, for one example, as texts--and being scrupulous about permission repair--has taught me a lot and even better, it just works.

On or about 2/12/06 10:13 PM, thus spake "Andrew Rodger"
<leasburnstudiof2s.com>:

> If you have two partitions (or discs) on which you want to install
> two different OSXs, have you used / does one use the same ID (short
> name and password)?

Personally, I don't.

> I remain slightly troubled that a combination of
> using a different ID, plus an IMAP connection to a .mac account + two
> different Address Books with different "Me"s might have set things
> off on a bad footing

On the whole, I boot into Panther / Tiger for different purposes, so the
problem doesn't arise. So normally I would just say, "Don't do that": one
user is the one who does email, the other user is the one who does whatever
you're booting into Panther for, and never the twain shall meet. However, it
happens that in my case both can do the same email. This is no problem for
me because email programs have preferences. Also because there is such a
thing as aliases / symlinks, so the two users are actually using the very
same mail storage files on the computer. And of course if you're doing IMAP
then the problem *really* doesn't arise because there is the mail storage is
on another computer!

> Do they then exist side by side with their own desktop folders and
> libraries etc.?

There is a problematic "they" in that sentence, so I can't quite tell what
you are asking. The answer to the question I think you're asking is yes, but
only incidentally. Haven't you ever made a second user? If not, maybe you
should start there and experiment. I always have at least two users, so that
if one goes sour I have another to fall back on. The whole point of Mac OS X
(okay, I lied, not the whole point, but part of the point) is that there are
users. Every user has his own everything. When you switch users it's like
ducking into a phone booth and changing into your Superman costure (you do
that, don't you?).

Well, rebooting into another system is like switching users, except that
there is no fast user switching between these users - you have to reboot. It
also happens that these two users are running under different systems, but
that effect is almost secondary.

> And if so, are you saying that you can access anything anywhere and
> all things are visible and I will not then need to adjust permissions
> because the ID is "common".

As I said before, I don't think the ID is "common".

I can access things within the normal rules of users and permissions. If you
don't understand what those are, you might like to read the Take Control
books on this topic:

<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/permissions-macosx.html>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-users.html>

My main Tiger user, mattneub, is an admin. My main Panther user, matt2, is
also an admin. So one way or another they can see everything they need to
see, because they are both admins. Furthermore (and this is important) they
are on two different partitions, and there are *no* permission restrictions
for each user with respect to the other partition, because I have "Ignore
ownership on this volume" turned on for the other partition in each case. m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = matttidbits.com, http://www.tidbits.com/matt/
pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei
AppleScript: the Definitive Guide -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005571/somethingsbymatt
Take Control of Word 2004, Tiger, and more -
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html
Subscribe to TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.tidbits.com/

At 10:13 PM -0800 2006/02/12, Andrew Rodger wrote:
>If you have two partitions (or discs) on which you want to install
>two different OSXs, have you used / does one use the same ID (short
>name and password)? I remain slightly troubled that a combination of
>using a different ID, plus an IMAP connection to a .mac account + two
>different Address Books with different "Me"s might have set things
>off on a bad footing but I am talking Voodoo now, not logic (don't
>say it)

        Yes. You should create the accounts in the same order with
the same short names on all partitions. When you create an account in
the Mac OS X installer (Panther/Tiger/Jaguar), it is assigned UID
501, and the operating system uses UIDs to track file ownership.

        As you add new users, each one gets the next UID in order
(502, 503, etc.). So if you create user #2 "andy" and then #3 "joey"
in Panther, but on a Tiger partition you create joey second and andy
third, they will own each other's files instead of their own on the
other partition.

        If you are consistent with short names and order of account
creation, things should just work, though.

        The partitions will be completely independent, each with
their own /System, /Library, /Users (and /Users/arodger/Desktop),
etc. But you will see the others under /Volumes, so you can share
files between partitions.

        Note that you can make your home directory a symbolic link. I
do this to avoid inconsistency, so on my test partition /Users/pepper
is actually a symlink to /Volumes/pepperbook/Users/pepper, which
makes things much easier to keep track of.


                                                Chris

PS-There are probably a couple Take Control books with helpful
guidance on this stuff -- about files and folders, to explain the UID
& account logic.

--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

On Feb 14, 2006, at 3:13 PM, Matt Neuburg wrote:

>> If you have two partitions (or discs) on which you want to install
>> two different OSXs, have you used / does one use the same ID (short
>> name and password)?
>
> Personally, I don't.

On the other hand, I carefully aligned usernames and UIDs on my new
machine to match the old machine (including leaving UID gaps on the
new machine to match deleted users on the old. This makes swiveling
my chair around to the other machine relatively painless.

Or it would, if I hadn't messed up from day one (first day of 10.0)
and used the initial (admin) user as my day-to-day account. I have a
second admin user (for fixing things if I mess up the first one) and
two regular users (one of them for development work (oops,
development play)). The non-development regular user is hardly every
used on the old machine.

Having no need for Panther, I haven't worried about how I would do
Panther and Tiger on one disk.

   --John

--
John W Baxter
jwbaxtermac.com

At 3:13 PM -0800 2006/02/14, Matt Neuburg wrote:

>Well, rebooting into another system is like switching users, except that
>there is no fast user switching between these users - you have to reboot. It
>also happens that these two users are running under different systems, but
>that effect is almost secondary.

        In contrast, I use my pepper account under Tiger, Panther,
Tiger Server, and Tiger betas, and I want everything the same, modulo
the OS differences. This is why I use the same username, UID, and
home directory.


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

On 2006-02-15, at 20:38, John W Baxter wrote:

> On the other hand, I carefully aligned usernames and UIDs on my new
> machine to match the old machine (including leaving UID gaps on the
> new machine to match deleted users on the old. This makes swiveling
> my chair around to the other machine relatively painless.
>
> Or it would, if I hadn't messed up from day one

If you're saying the UIDs aren't quite in sync, I found this very
easy to correct on my two machines:

1. Log the user out

2. Go into NetInfo and change the uid of the appropriate user

3. Use chown to change the file owners from old to new (you could
probably get smart with the find command for this, but all the files
I needed to change were in the user's home directory).

On Feb 22, 2006, at 12:49 PM, barefootguruparadise.net.nz wrote:

> On 2006-02-15, at 20:38, John W Baxter wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, I carefully aligned usernames and UIDs on my new
>> machine to match the old machine (including leaving UID gaps on the
>> new machine to match deleted users on the old. This makes swiveling
>> my chair around to the other machine relatively painless.
>>
>> Or it would, if I hadn't messed up from day one
>
> If you're saying the UIDs aren't quite in sync, I found this very
> easy to correct on my two machines:
>
> 1. Log the user out
>
> 2. Go into NetInfo and change the uid of the appropriate user
>
> 3. Use chown to change the file owners from old to new (you could
> probably get smart with the find command for this, but all the files
> I needed to change were in the user's home directory).

In my case the find command and xargs would be used, since I have
lots of "wandering" files outside home.

But--my UIDs are exactly in sync. The problem is that on the G4 I
started out, foolishly, using the UID 501 admin account for day-to-
day normal use. By the time I commissioned the Mini I knew better,
and used a different account for day-to-day use, leaving the 501
account to its intended purpose.

I want to wind up using the same account on the G4 for day-to-day use
that I use for that on the Mini...that means moving lots of files
around and changing ownerships on the G4. And I've been too lazy to
do it.

   --John