[comp.sys.mac.misc] wrt rebuilding the desktop

cloos@acsu.buffalo.edu (James H. Cloos) (10/18/90)

Hello,

I've got a 84 meg hd with a few partitions on it.  It has approx 40 to
60 megs used between the 7 or 8 partitions.  The desktop files had
become trashed, so I just removed them (using DiskTop) and was going
to let FInder rebuild them.  I gave up after approx 45 minutes.  Is
this an unreasonable length of time to wait on a SE with system
release 6.0.4 (ie, whatever version of finder comes w/ that, 6.1.4 or
something like that, ja?) and 1 meg ram? (Running off of the boot vol
on said hd.)  Would it be faster if I started it up from a floppy?
Also, am I correct in assuming that for hard partitions (via
SilverLining) the Desktop files for each volume contain references
only to the files on that volume?  (These Desktops were getting BIG!)

Please mail responses as I've not had time lately to wade thru
c.s.mac.* in addition to everything else to do in a day [SIGH]...

-JimC
--
James H. Cloos, Jr.		Phone:  +1 716 673-1250
cloos@ACSU.Buffalo.EDU		Snail:  PersonalZipCode:  14048-0772, USA
cloos@ub.UUCP

wiseman@tellabs.com (Jeff Wiseman) (10/20/90)

In article <41346@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> cloos@acsu.buffalo.edu (James H. Cloos) writes:
>Also, am I correct in assuming that for hard partitions (via
>SilverLining) the Desktop files for each volume contain references
>only to the files on that volume?  (These Desktops were getting BIG!)

I think that one of the real tricks in setting up partitions is doing it in
such a fashion that you don't ever have to move files between them (right!
suuurrre...:-).

For the intent of keeping your desktop file size down, files and applications
of the same "breed" need to be together. For example, I keep my financial
program and all the budgets in the same partition. If I were to move even one
of the budget documents to another partition, the new partition's desktop file
will have the new icons and such added to it effectively reducing many of the
"desktop file" oriented benefits of the different partitions.

Another gotcha is if you have a pile of public domain stuff archived in one
large partition. This works GREAT as long as you don't start UNSTUFFING them
there. From inside STUFFIT, Unstuff your files directly to the partition that
you will be using them in. That way, your archive partition's desktop file will
never need to know about all those icons and stuff hidden in the stuffit
documents.

I keep a "scratch pad" type partition for just mucking around in and trying new
applications. It helps to reduce the churn on my main working partitions and
it's faster when I only have to rebuild the one partition all the time.

If you set your system up so that there is a matrix of references from any
partition to any other one, you can reach the point that for desktop and speed
issues, you may almost be better off with fewer partitions (this of course
doesn't take into account the fact that a partition can make a nice division
for security issues).

Anybody else out there have any Ideas on good ways to set up different
partitions on the Mac so that you get the best of both worlds? (ie controlled
desktop files and at the same time ease of use).

--
Jeff Wiseman:	....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM