Running Mac OS X Tiger

Filesystem Domains

In our discussion about the filesystem, you’ve no doubt identified a certain amount of redundancy. There’s a Library folder at the root of the filesystem, one in your Home folder, and one in the System folder. And if you create an Applications folder in your Home folder to store applications that aren’t for use by others, you’ll note that it automatically gets the same folder icon as the Applications folder at the root of the filesystem, as shown in Figure 3-5.

This is the result of a concept known as filesystem domains and is structured to allow multiple users to share the same system or to be hosted on a server so they can use multiple systems and yet provide a consistent experience.

Figure 3-5. The User and Local domains in the Finder

Where to Put Your Applications

The various filesystem domains give you a choice as to where to put your applications. If you are the only user on a system that is going to be using an application, you should consider putting it into an Applications folder in your Home folder. This keeps your applications separate from all of the applications that come on the system in the /Applications folder. However, there are many applications—typically older applications that have been migrated from Mac OS 9—that have to be installed in the /Applications folder. There’s no winning sometimes, but at least for many applications, what domain you ...