I've slogged along for quite a while now with a home-made partitioning scheme on my PowerMac 6500 (OS 9.2.2 and 120 GB memory). But, I'm not sure if I've accomplished anything of note. Basically, I've used "content" type as the basis for each partition, e.g. "Main" (System file and main applications), "Audio" (all audio-related apps), "Publishing" (all word processing and related software) and a "Scratch" partition (a huge partition for downloading music, etc.).
Now, I discovered I don't know some basic stuff that I can't seem to find answers to. I'll list the questions in no particular order;
1) Do I have to install the core OS System file in each partition? (Dumb question right?) I have it set up that way now. The reason: as I remember, some applications on a partition wouldn't "work" (error messages, etc.) unless the System file was there with them.
The second part to this: if the System file has to be repeated in each partition, will it work if I put in an *aliased* System file in all but my "Main" partition where I've got the actual file?
Third part: will I be able (as I can now) select, say, "Publishing" to be the "start-up" volume if the actual System file is not on that partition?
If you are only running a single version of the OS, then you only need to have it - and you SHOULD only have it - installed on one partition. For OS 9.x, unless you understand what you are doing, it is really best if you simply have one partition with your system and all applications on it. You can have separate partitions for different types of data and/or cache files. Most of the time you can install applications on a separate partition with no problems, but sometimes not. You should NOT have an alias to the system folder on a different partition to 'work around' problems. It will only cause them, not fix any I am aware of. As to starting from different partitions, yes you can but see the answer to 2 below on why you don't want multiple installs of the same OS.
2) Do I have to separately install the originals of some applications in each partition? For example, after I installed Stuffit Deluxe in my "Main" partition, I made an alias of the app icon and installed it on "Publishing". But, no dice, the alias wouldn't work there. And, as I recall, the same happened for my Epson printer; I had to install the whole Epson file again in "Publishing". Another example: just installing my Sonnet Crescendo driver software on "Main" (I thought it would take effect on the entire hard drive) left the other partitions back in their original slow-as-molasses state.
If you have multiple copies of an OS installed on different partitions and are booting from them, then yes for some applications you will have to do multiple installs. The reason is (for Stuffit I know this is the case) is that the applications will install some 'shared' code in the System folder itself. Depending on the installer, they will either put the files in the current active system folder (the one you booted from) or the one on the current partition even if you didn't boot from it. The programs will then expect the files to be in the active system folder when they are run and if they are not there they wont work. This is why if you are only running 1 version of the OS, it should be installed 1 time and your applications should be installed on that partition as well.
3) And then there's the matter of "splitting up" components of a single piece of software. For example, some partitioning-advice sources say it's good to move various temporary *cache* files onto the "Scratch" partition. Put your printer cache files there, and so on. I'm not sure I'd correctly identify the correct cache's that can be moved, but can this be done without "hurting anything"?
This advice sounds like it is coming from people doing mid to high-end production work, where speed is everything and simplicity is a secondary concern. If you are being paid for some type of processing, e-mail me privately and I'll be glad to give you my paid for advice on how to set you system up. If not, I'd say don't worry about it.
As another example, I want to set up a RAM disk for a couple of the browsers I've got. I may be exceptionally "thick" about doing this, but I can't figure out whether I have to keep that RAM disk on the same volume/partition as the browser or if it's okay to put it, say, in my "Scratch" partition.
A RAM disk is just that, a disk that physically lives in RAM. If you use Apples implementation, the disk's contents are discarded at each shutdown and the disk is recreated (empty) at each startup. Various 3rd party companies have software solutions that preserve the disk at shutdown and re-load it at startup.
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