Symbolic Link For Games In Mac

Posted By admin On 15.04.20

Jan 17, 2012 Name: How to Create Symbolic Links to Save Space on a SSD Description: This video shows how to use SymbolicLinker to save space on your solid state boot drive, by relocating files to a larger hard. Aug 06, 2015 A symbolic link created at the command line allows a linked object in the file system to point to an original object in a different location. In this way, symbolic links behave much like an alias does in the Mac OS X GUI, except that the linking and reference between files or folders is done at a lower level, and thus can be pointed directly to by various applications or user purposes.

Jun 17, 2014  Late to your question, but for posterity's sake, 'source' and 'target' would both seem to be the same thing, i.e. The pathname of the actual file or folder. The symbolic link is a virtual copy of it, but with a different name and address (pathname). That said, very basic questions like this are best googled. Aug 09, 2012 I have symbolic linker installed on my mac, which lets me easily make a symbolic link of any folder. I decided to make a symbolic link of my php projects folder (which is in dropbox), and place it. This now puts a link in the Library folder to the network folder. Voila, if her Mac craps out for some reason, all her email is still saved on the network and available from another Mac, in an emergency. The added benefit is that the server gets backed up every evening. Symbolic links are similar to aliases, in the sense that they are shortcuts that link to a specific file or folder. But symbolic links are often more useful than aliases: For example, if you put.

I am a Mac/unix lover in a Windows world. So, while I have my Macs able to authenticate against a Windows 2000 Active Directory system, I still run into some squirrelly problems from time to time. The latest was trying to get OpenOffice to open documents on a user's Windows server share, and wanting to store the user's email on the server. To make life easier for the user, I decided to add an alias/link from her desktop to a folder in her Windows share. The problem was, OpenOffice does not understand MacOS links. To solve the problem, I went to the Terminal window, used df to find the correct path to her network directory and used ln -s to create the link. For example, starting with the df output (trimmed for display width): I know that the directory I want is /Volumes -> users -> someusername -> sourcedirectory, so the ln command I used was: This puts a link named importantdirectory-shortcut on the user's desktop that takes them to /Volumes -> users -> someusersname -> importantdirectory. OpenOffice, understands and follows this link.

This works well because /Volumes -> users -> someusername is always mounted from the server, because OS X understand the directives from Active Directory to mount network drives when someone logs in. I extended this use of links to the user's Mail.app support directory under the user's Library folder, too.
I set up the user with her mail account. Then I quit Mail.app. I then went to /Users -> someusername -> Library. In that directory is a folder named Mail. I used the Finder to drag and drop a copy to her Windows share at /Volumes -> users -> someusername. I renamed the ~someusername -> Library -> Mail directory to 'save.Mail' for safekeeping, and then, once again, made a symbolic link using: This now puts a link in the Library folder to the network folder. Voila, if her Mac craps out for some reason, all her email is still saved on the network and available from another Mac, in an emergency. The added benefit is that the server gets backed up every evening.

I am thinking about moving her complete /Users -> someusername -> Library directory to the server. What would be really cool if someone who is more familiar with login hooks could help me do this automatically for all users who log in.
[robg adds: An earlier hint (the comments, in particular) has further discussion on the differences between symbolic links and aliases..]

Play


A brief tutorial on symbolic links 13 comments Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'A brief tutorial on symbolic links' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
thx for the tip, while fiddling with symbolic links and comparing them to the traditional Mac way of making aliases (command-option-drag) I discovered that the terminal-created symbolic link may be smaller. Do this: make an alias of a folder in the finder then make a symbolic link of that same folder. Then look at the file size in Get Info. I'm not exactly sure what the second figure is but I see this: Finder alias: Symbolic link: Note that while their size 'on disk' are both 4k, the symbolic link has only 9 bytes to the right of that while the alias has 650 bytes. Does anyone know what this second figure represents?
This has to do with the HFS+ file structure. HFS+ has a minimum file size of 4KB. This means that any file you create (even a text file with just the letter 'a', only 1 byte large) will take up a minimum block of 4 kilobytes. Isn't this inefficient? Well, yes and no. It's inefficient because you have wasted space. However, it makes finding files easier (because the blocks of data are much larger than one byte), and nearly all files in the old Mac OS were much larger than 4 KB anyway. Now with OS X, we have several hundred thousand files, but most are still larger than 4KB and the cost of hard drives is so amazingly cheap now that it wouldn't matter anyway. I hope that helps to clear things up.
Jordan

that size in bytes is how much space the file really needs. however, the smallest amount of space that can be allocated for something is 4k. so 9 bytes or 650 bytes, it is going to use 4k of disk space.

Aliases and Symbolic Links differs in lots of things. SymLinks just points to the original file location, so, if you move the original, it will not find it! Aliases points in a 'magic' way that allways find the original, even if you move it or rename it. I had a big discussion about this with A. S. Tanembaun!!! And even him could tell how Mac Alias work, it's really a big magic to always point to the right place. That's why Alias files are bigger that SymLinks. Hardlinks, on the other way, points to the 'node' (you have to understand how HFS+ works to understand this deeply) of the original file, so it IS the original file. That's why when you check it's size, it will look like the original. But the magic is that it does not take more file space than the original! You can test this in a big video file: do a HardLink and check how much of your disk was taken. Probably only 4kb (of HFS+ minimum file size). I made a video about Aliases to show to Tanembaun how it works: YouTube video link
Mac
By *NIX convention, file whose name begins with a period are 'hidden'. The Finder honors this, so if you name your link '.Classic', instead of 'Classic', you won't see an alias to Classic when you look in your 'X' volume in the Finder or when you ls /. (use ls -a /)
Bonus Tip!:
This will add a character you have to type when you cd, but if you use the right naming convention, you can use tab-complete to make it faster than ever! Do this:
cd /
ln -s /Volumes/Classic .qclassic
cd ~
cd /.qc[TAB]
The last line means type '/.qc' then press tab (with no space in between). I prefixed the volume name with 'q' because it stands for 'quick' and no other files there are likely to be called .qsomething. I used a lower case 'c' because tab-complete is case-sensitive by default.

this provides similar functionality, but not exactly the same. i prefer it because it keeps my root folder uncluttered. as it is i already have enough 'TheVolumeSettings' and 'Desktop DB' stuff that makes it look unelegant.. but to the tip:
in tcsh you can set a variable called 'cdpath' that includes a list of directories which are searched whenever you 'cd' to another directory. perhaps this also would apply to pushd as well.
currently, you can type 'cd Music' anywhere in your filesystem and if you aren't in a directory that contains a directory named Music, you will be switched over to ~/Music. if you do this in your .cshrc:
set cdpath = (~/ /Volumes)
you can do the same thing. if you have a partition named Classic, you can type 'cd Classic' and you'll be put at /Volumes/Classic. tab completion does not work here, so you'll have to type the full name yourself.

That was very cool. Using it already.

Steps to download Android apps/games for phone To download and install applications or games from our website to your smartphone: 1. Accept softwares installed from external sources (Settings - Apps - Unknown sources selected area) 2. Download the apk file of the application you need (for example: Aesthetic Wallpapers) and save to your phone 3. Aesthetic desktop games for mac.

Fantastic!

aliases:
* keep pointing to the same file/folder, even when it is moved
(although not when moved to a different partition / drive)
* store a separate copy of the icon and can have different icons
* not usable from the command line
sym links:
* just store the location of the original. If it moves, they break.
If something else of the same name is put there it now points to that.
* uses the icon of the original
* Did not use to work in Classic / OS9, but seem to now - is this a 9.2 change?
The most important bit of this to remember is that aliases are pointers to objects and
symbolic links are pointers to locations. For most tasks, I think aliases are thus more useful.
half.

Of course UNIX has an equivalent to aliases as well. Rather than using symbolic links you can use 'hard' links. Just use the ln command without the -s option and you will create a hard link. Same caveats as Mac aliases - only work on the same partition, but the cool thing is, both the 'original' and the new hard link are entirely equivalent. You can delete the original, but the file will still exist, because there is another 'link' to it. You can have as many hard links as you like, and as long as you have one the file will still exist.

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed.
Now I can share common interface and WTF folders among 2 computers and 4 copies of WoW! No more painfully long reconfiguration days when updates come out. Now I can just change it once and it's changed on all computers in all copies of WoW.
Thanks again!

Will the App Store update an App that is represented by a symbolic link in the startup Applications folder even though the actual App is on another (always connected) drive?

Questions and statements:
The reason for the organization of files and partitions is as follows, I am an Architect that utilized software that required Rosetta, and it will not be updated. So coming from the PC world about 4 years ago, I was used to partitioning for data and having software from any directory go there. SO I probably used the wrong logic, I hope not, since this all came about by migrating to a new machine (came with 10.6.8 installed).
I did the following:
Clone of old machine in Partition #1 - Intended to Install Lion into this one.
Clone of my PC Partition put in new Partition #2
Clone of Graphics Partition put in Partition #3-'DATA'
Migrated Old Macine into Partition #4 - Keeping Snow as woking partiton.
Wanted Both partitions to go after DATA in a third Partition, depending on what I booted into. All data stays coordinated and easily backed up.
All the following is happening with programs running in Partion #1 : pre-conversion to Lion.
I followed instructions and all went well. But I may have done something that this command does not allow. I moved all my data (Folder=ARCH) to a partition called 'Data' in Partition #3. Removed 'ARCH' folder from my documents folder in Partition #1. and did the Link.
Now the issues:
1. Running Parallels and my windows-7 Cad program; everything worked, getting my data loaded (from Partition #3) and getting Virtual files loaded from Partion #2.
Then went to Quicken for windows. Loaded files OK, but when I went to back them up Quicken could not see the new 'ARCH' folder in Partiton #3. SO loading files worked but after , writing files did not work. ??????
2. Moved to Partition #4, a clone of Partition #1. Booted and went to do another link from this loaction to the 'ARCH' data folder in Partition #3. All I got in the Finder was a 'ARCH' folder with a round red dot, it was a empty folder. ???????
Was my logic wrong? Should I have loaded a clone of the 'ARCH' folder/data into Partition #3 rather then moving it from partition #1, and then link it?
Been doing the since CPM as a operating system, but no experience in Unix/Apple.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Ray