What's the easiest way to clone a boot partition? It the OS 9 days
you could just copy the system folder to another volume and then
that volume was bootable. Obviously there's more going on with OS X
and it's not so easy any more. But I've tried using Disk Copy to
create a DMG file, copy all the System and Library folders to it,
but then I could not find a way to boot into that DMG file.
I would really like to learn the secret of making a quick copy of a
bootable volume again.
Rob Ross, Lead Software Engineer
E! Networks
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"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his
heart he dreams himself your master." -- Commissioner Pravin Lal
On Sep 8, 2008, at 6:02 PM, Greg Guerin wrote:
Robert Koberg wrote:
You must spend a lot of time rebooting.
Nope.
Why not just buy multiple machines for your testing purposes?
I do have multiple machines. But I also have more bootable configs
than machines, hence the partitions.
Is it legal to install the same version of OS X on two different
partitions? (I really don't know)
Each machine came with an OS and has a separate license. The older
machines have a series of upgraded OS licenses. The newer machines
won't run older OS versions anyway, so it's moot for them. And the
really old machines won't run the newer OS versions, so that's moot
for them.
As to duplicated installs of the same licensed OS on a single
machine, I see no legal problems. The license basically says it's
tied to the hardware. I'm also allowed to make backup copies, and
frankly, that's how the replicas get used: potentially discardable
backup copies. Since no single machine can boot multiple
partitions at once, there's never a question of having multiple
concurrent running versions of the same license. If in doubt,
consult your own legal counsel.
To me, it's about the same as virtualized bootable installs, just
not as virtualized.
Are you a professional beta tester?
No, but sometimes it seems that way.
There are times when I have to test a new release (OS, Java,
whatever) and I don't want to compromise the existing install. So
I clone the known-good install to a spare partition, install the
new release there, then boot on that. Assuming the entire disk
doesn't get compromised (yeah, it's happened, so backups are also
wise), this approach lets me test the new release but still revert
back without having to restore from a backup, do a re-install,
etc. I just choose the older startup partition and restart. If
the new one works, then I might keep it active, or even migrate to
it. If it doesn't work, then I can kill it and revert back to the
known-good install without ever having to think about how to un-
install anything.
There are other times when I have to go backwards in testing, and
run a new version of an app under an old OS or JVM version, to
ensure it's still compatible, or to check that a new work-around is
indeed working around a bug in that old OS or JVM. So just because
a partition becomes outdated doesn't necessarily mean it's useless.
Situations like this come up regularly enough that I have found it
useful to maintain these multiple bootable partitions. It's what
I've found works best for me for getting my work done, where "best"
means my choice of a balance between cash outlay, equipment
upgrades, equipment additions, equipment retirement, and me
performing installs of older or newer software. I think the
alternatives are worse. So compared to the other alternatives,
yes, this is how I want to do it. If the question is whether it
would be better to have bug-free software releases I can rely on
without having to vet them first, then no, multiple partitions is
not how I want to do it. But until the day when all software
releases everywhere are bug-free on all possible configurations, I
think I'll keep doing it this way.
I should also say that I've been doing things this way for years,
since long before Mac OS 10.0 was released. I have a stack of old
SCSI drives with much older Mac OS versions on them, back when 512
MB of mass-storage wasn't a little card you stuck in a digital
camera. Some day I may weld some eye-bolts on some of those drives
and use them as boat-anchors. Right now, most are stacked in my
closet, but two are used to hold up a shelf, and one is a
doorstop. Always check mass and dimensions first, as YMMV.
-- GG
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