Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 5027

I have just bought a mac mini.

The old P3 desktop that my GF had finally gave up, and we had talked about noise-free computing.

So I have taken the plunge and gotten a Mini Solo Core 1.5GHz with a gig of ram. Once I have the thing up and running, I'll ship it across the pond. (I must say that this thing is pretty quiet. All I can hear is the 2.5" HDD, a barely audible hum from a foot away)

I have set up two user accounts on the machine, and would like make two things happen.

1) Make sure that all multimedia is accesible to both accounts

2) Make sure that multimedia that is added later is also accessible to both accounts

What is the best way of doing that? I will probably need a walkthrough as I only turned this thing on 3 hours ago.

Cheers
-m

Last edited by mudded on 05-07-2006 at 03:56 PM

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16803

place all multimedia files directly onto the "hard drive" instead of placing them into the specific user media/music directory.

tada!

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 5027

I guess that would work. But I'd rather try to set up full sharing utilizing the standard folder settings

Cheers
-m

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16803

elaborate

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 5027

out of the box each user has folders designated for music, photos etc.

I either need to figure out how to configure the relevant software (ilife, itoons) to use cross-user folders that I define, or figure out how to enable sharing in the default folders.

Cheers
-m

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35658

Clearly, make everyone into an admin. Give them all the same password, something easy to remember; something like 'password', say.

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 4776

You could probably do it with symlinks and generous group permissions, although I don't know enough about the personalised directory structures to tell you how exactly to do it.

There's also the issue of default the default umask(possibly fixable using sticky bits on the directories, depending on how OS X handles them) and permission inheritance(again, possibly fixble with sticky bits).

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7922

For shareing music betwen accounts with iTunes, I set up a shared directory and gave group access read/write permissions. (there is a Users/Shared folder which would be the intutive place to do this. So "/Users/Shared/Music" for instance. The accounts should be in the same group.) Throw out the "Music" directories in the accounts you want to share (taking the music out before of course). "Make Alias" (under the Finder's File menu or apple key + 'L') the "/Users/Shared/Music" directory and stick the "Music" alias file into the home directories of the accounts you want to share.

Start itunes, re-add your music to it. Tinker with it until it works under both accounts. (In System Preferences, under Accounts, click on "Login Options". Check the check box beside "Enable Fast User Switching". While you are tinkering ou can test your changes between accounts much faster by using this.)

Hope it helps.

PS. Groups and their management is done using the NetInfo Manager app under Utilities in Applications. Play with caution, it's sort of like the registry editor in windows in terms of importance and it's a bit peculiar to boot. Read on it before you use it. You've been warned.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: China
Posts: 11795

I thought Macs were simple to use?

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7922

PS. you can graphicaly set uid, gid, oid bits (user, group, others) by "Get Info"ing the dir (apple key plus 'I') and expanding the Ownership & Permissions: tab and the "Details" tab below that.

Attachment: bits.png
This has been downloaded 29 time(s).

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
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quote:

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Originally posted by Aydin
I thought Macs were simple to use?

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Registered: Apr 2005
Location: heat
Posts: 10750

or, just do like hawley said and create a folder for music/photos anywhere that's not in the user space.

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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Oceanside, CA
Posts: 5154

Yes, I think that would work. Put a folder outside the /Users folder and set up iTunes, etc. to use that as the default folder. That should work.

__________________

[Ignore Sig]

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7922

You still have to set permissions to read/write aand make the aliases for itunes. Otherwise your 3 gigs of music could concievabley turn into 9 gigs. 3 in the the original spot, 3 in user1's $HOME/Music, 3 in user2's $HOME/Music.

The real easy solution is to make a lax security dir and use something other than iTunes to play it.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16803

anything is better than iTunes

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: China
Posts: 11795

Can Mac users read my sig?

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
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Whoops, learned something new. You can set the music dir in iTunes. Didn't know that. (Only used macs for a year and this was my first problem.)

Still, if you want some security, it's good to have a group policy.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7922

Looks like you can skip the alias crap, but you still need to set permissions. Group R/W and Others R/W.

quote:

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Originally posted by Aydin
Can Mac users read my sig?

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
Posts: 9454

Hawley's initial directions are technically correct but woefully incomplete. Yeah, the Shared directory in the user's pane is the ticket. You can choose the music folder via iTunes and can force iPhoto to use a non-default-location for its database. Most everything else would be manually accessed, I think.

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