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System Setup Manual
Rev 03
March 2018
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Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION 3
2. PREPPING STEPS 3
DISABLE SPOTLIGHT 3 DISABLE DISPLAY SLEEP, DISK SPIN DOWN AND
SYSTEM SLEEP 3 DISABLE SCREENSAVER 3 DISABLE TIME MACHINE 4 DISABLE
SOFTWARE UPDATE 4 DISABLE DASHBOARD 4 STAY OFF THE INTERNET (IF
POSSIBLE) 4 LOG OUT OF ICLOUD 5 MINIMIZE INTERNET ACCOUNTS 5
RESTART THE DOCK 5 DISABLE USER LOGIN ITEMS 5 DISABLE OTHER
SOFTWARE 6 DISABLE APP NAP SYSTEM WIDE IN MAC OS X 6 RE-ENABLE APP
NAP IN MAC OS X 6
3. SLOW SYSTEM 6
4. FAST SHORTCUT TO ALL COMMAND LINES 7
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1. Introduction
There are a number of programs, processes, and tasks that your
Mac runs either periodically or all the
time in the background. Many of these programs are essential,
but many are not. E.g. programs like
Dropbox or the Calendar that are used for day to day ‘office’
work.
Disabling such programs will increase the availability of your
computer's resources and will make your Follow Me system more
responsive.
What follows here is a list of the programs or processes which
we recommend disabling, and
instructions for doing this.
This section presupposes a basic understanding of the Mac OS and
at least a passing familiarity with
the Terminal.
2. Prepping steps
Disable Spotlight Spotlight periodically updates its index of
all files on all attached disks, and this updating can cause
the disk to be momentarily unavailable. To prevent Spotlight
from updating its index, open a Terminal
window and enter this command:
sudo mdutil -a -i off
Disable Display Sleep, Disk Spin down and System Sleep Obviously
we don't want our computer going to sleep during a show. The Mac OS
has independent
sleep intervals for the display, the hard disk, and the whole
system. To prevent all three kinds of
sleeping, open a Terminal window and enter this command:
sudo pmset -a displaysleep 0 disksleep 0 sleep 0
Disable Screensaver Likewise, we don't want the screensaver
coming up. To prevent that from happening, open a Terminal
window and enter this command:
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime 0
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Disable Time Machine Backups are wonderful. You should back up
everything as often as possible. But on a computer used for
your show, backups should only be done manually. Time Machine,
much like Spotlight, uses indexing
and background processes which can take hold of the disk at
inopportune moments. To shut off Time
Machine, open a Terminal window and enter this command:
sudo tmutil disable
Disable Software Update You don't want your computer trying to
update software in the middle of a run, let alone in the middle
of a performance. To disable Software Update, open a Terminal
window and enter this command:
sudo softwareupdate --schedule off
Disable Dashboard Dashboard, largely neglected by Apple these
days, is a pernicious little vampire of CPU time and
network access. Also, if accidentally invoked, it takes over the
screen of your Mac entirely, which can be
surprising and confusing and lead to missed cues. To disable
Dashboard entirely, open a Terminal
window and enter this command:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
Alternatively, you can disable Dashboard on MacOS 10.11 and
higher using System Preferences:
1. Open System Preferences 2. Choose Mission Control 3. Set
dashboard to :OFF:
Stay OFF The Internet (if possible) Many individual applications
have their own internal scheme to check for updates. You can turn
them
off manually, and we recommend that. But the best way to
guarantee that automatic software updates
or any other network traffic won't bother your show is to
disconnect the show computer from the
Internet. We strongly encourage this. When you use a network to
connect your Follow-Me computer to
other hardware, and your show doesn't require Internet access,
make sure that network is a closed LAN
(local area network) and has no path to the Internet.
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It’s convenient to define a specific “location” in the network
preference pane:
1. Go to System Preferences -> Network and check the network
connection that is active, like “Ethernet” (in the example image
the network adaptor has been renamed to Art-Net)
2. Go to “Location” drop down menu, and press “Edit Locations”
3. Add a new location by pressing the “+”, and rename to Follow-Me
4. Press “Done” and select that location 5. Set the parameters to
match the DMX/Art-Net network, probably like:
• Ethernet Connection • Configure IPv4: Manually • IP Adress:
2.x.x.x (between 1 & 254) • Subnetmask: 255.0.0.0 • Click on
“Apply”, and check for the proper result
Log Out of iCloud Even when your Mac is offline, iCloud is
surprisingly assertive about checking in with the iCloud
servers. Logging out of iCloud ensures that this check-in
process doesn't claim processor power when
you need it.
1. Open System Preferences 2. Choose iCloud 3. Click “Sign
Out”
Minimize Internet Accounts Similarly, any accounts used to sync
Mail, Contacts, and Calendars can potentially try to access the
Internet and take up processing power while doing so, even while
network access is disabled.
1. Open System Preferences 2. Choose Internet Accounts 3. Choose
an account 4. Uncheck each service type 5. Repeat for each
account
Restart the Dock Oddly, the Dock is in control of several of the
system components that we just adjusted. Restarting the
Dock allows these changes to take effect. Open a Terminal window
and enter this command:
killall Dock
Disable User Login Items Some applications that are started at
login need to be killed:
1. Open System Preferences 2. Choose User accounts 3. Choose the
account you’re using now, probably admin 4. Go to login items
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5. Check all items: checked items will not start, unchecked
items will start 6. Restart your system and login again
Disable Other Software Perhaps you have more applications
running that consume resources, like a firewall or anti virus
applications.
1. Have a look at the top right corner of your screen and see if
there are applications indicating that they’re started and working;
close them by hand.
Disable App Nap System Wide in Mac OS X Turning this off may
impact every task, process, or application that runs in the
background of OS X:
1. Open the Terminal app, found in the /Applications/Utilities/
folder 2. Copy and paste the following defaults string into the
terminal, then hit the return key:
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES
3. Close out of Terminal and relaunch apps and/or processes for
the change to carry through
Re-Enable App Nap in Mac OS X Decided you’d rather have App Nap
left on so that OS X can manage the energy usage of applications
and processes? You can easily reverse course and re-enable the App
Nap feature everywhere in OS X just by changing the defaults string
a bit, here’s how:
1. Back in Terminal app, use the following command string and
then hit return:
defaults delete NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled
2. Quit and relaunch all apps, or reboot the Mac for the default
setting to return
Again, there’s no confirmation, but App Nap will function again
as intended. This feature requires OS X 10.9 or newer to use.
3. Slow System If you find your system still not responsive
enough during the control of the Follow-Me software, see if
there’s still some application running in the background that
you’re not aware of:
1. Open Apple’s Activity Monitor (in Applications/Utilities) 2.
Sort on “% CPU” 3. Find apps that are running and you don’t need
but be careful: many of them are system
processes that you don’t want to kill 4. Quit apps that are not
necessary for running Follow-Me
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4. Fast Shortcut To All Command Lines Here are all the command
lines in a row, so you can copy paste fast...
sudo mdutil -a -i off
sudo pmset -a displaysleep 0 disksleep 0 sleep 0
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime 0
sudo tmutil disable
sudo softwareupdate --schedule off
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES
