Going to pick up my first Mac!

[FFTT]

Why?

A standard 12" iBook comes with a 40 GB Hard Drive

The HD formatting, standard pre-installed operating system, applications, printer drivers,language translators, software demos and iLife '05 suite leaves you with roughly 25 GB of free space to work with.

I only recommend this after the user is certain that everything is working properly and before they start installing all their personal software and settings.

The lean erase install may seem drastic to the novice, but it frees up upwards of 4.7 GB of hard drive space that the user is much better off using for their full time daily applications and storage.

That's Why

 

[AlBDamned]

If you just purchased your mac, why go through the trouble doing a clean install? This isn't a PC.

The idea is with a 40GB HD, a custom install before you get started properly, will save you lots of space that may otherwise be filled with unnecesary junk. It's a good idea.

 

[radiantm3]

Why?

A standard 12" iBook comes with a 40 GB Hard Drive

The HD formatting, standard pre-installed operating system, applications, printer drivers,language translators, software demos and iLife '05 suite leaves you with roughly 25 GB of free space to work with.

I only recommend this after the user is certain that everything is working properly and before they start installing all their personal software and settings.

The lean erase install may seem drastic to the novice, but it frees up upwards of 4.7 GB of hard drive space that the user is much better off using for their full time daily applications and storage.

That's Why

Yes, but a reinstall isn't required. It's pretty easy to find the unecessary files and just delete them.

 

[FFTT]

If you know what you're doing and know exactly which files you can and
can not remove and where to find them that's fine, but someone new to OSX
could do more damage removing the wrong files and end up with a badly
fragmented directory or worse.

Starting out fresh is actually safer, less time consuming and better
optimizes the entire installation.

It also gives the new owner more control over what they do and do not
want on their system.

 

[runninmac]

If you know what you're doing and know exactly which files you can and
can not remove and where to find them that's fine, but someone new to OSX
could do more damage removing the wrong files and end up with a badly
fragmented directory or worse.

Starting out fresh is actually safer, less time consuming and better
optimizes the entire installation.

It also gives the new owner more control over what they do and do not
want on their system.

Yeah and I pretty much have never uninstalled anything so uninstaling chunks of the programs isnt really fitting. Well im off for the custom install.

 

[ITASOR]

Yeah and I pretty much have never uninstalled anything so uninstaling chunks of the programs isnt really fitting. Well im off for the custom install.

Haha, 4 months later with my iBook I'm still getting around to that initial clean install I planned. Maybe later today.....or tomorrow...

 

[FFTT]

ITASOR,

At least you had the 60GB HD to start with, so it may take you longer
to fill up your drive.

I went for years on my old beige G3 and only had about 6 GB total in use
on that 8.5 GB SCSI drive.

Now that applications are so huge that many come on installation DVD's
it's much more important to streamline the data you keep on smaller notebook drives.

 

[FFTT]

At the moment I sort of feel like Houston mission control waiting
for that first signal to come in from the communications blackout zone
so we know the astronauts are safe.

 

[runninmac]

LOL I may have forgot to say I was going to work for 4 hours. Everythings great I now have ~29Gigs of free space now. Thanks

 

[runninmac]

Now I just have one question left... or at least I think. Does anyone know now to make it so I dont have to press the function key and F12 to activate dashboard? So I could just press F12 and then press Function and F12. Anyone know what im talkin about?

 

[FFTT]

That's easy, go to System Preferences, Dashboard and Expose' and set up a hot corner.

You can press F12 alone
Click on the dashboard icon in your dock
or set up a hot corner.

 

[runninmac]

Wow im am officialy Mac illiterate... i knew that