Reminders for MacOS

• diskutil, hdiutil, drutil
• Create a USB stick to install MacOS
• MacOS versions
• MacOS filesystems

diskutil, hdiutil

$ diskutil list - show disk partitions
$ [sudo] diskutil mount disk0s1 - mount EFI partition. (It will be available under /Volumes/EFI or similar)
$ [sudo] diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s4 140g - expand APFS partition into free space after it. (where disk0s4 was shown by ‘diskutil list’ as something like:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
 #:       TYPE NAME              SIZE       IDENTIFIER
 4:  Apple_AFS Container disk1   85.9 GB    disk0s4

$ hdiutil attach filename.dmg - mount a .dmg disk image file

$ drutil eject - eject a DVD/CD

Create a USB stick to install MacOS

• Find a download link for the version of MacOS you want ( usually a large 7GB file named something like ‘Install macOS Sequioa’ ). Download it into your Applications folder.
• Use the MacOS Disk Utility to erase a 16GB USB stick : choose format type ‘MacOS Extended format’, and give it a name like ‘sequoiastick’ or similar
• In a Terminal Window , type something like:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sequioa.App/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/sequoiastick

MacOS versions

• from Catalina back to Mountain Lion were known as ‘OS X’ ; Lion back to Leopard were ‘Mac OS X’

MacOS filesystems

• MacOS Extended (HFS+) is better for spinning disks
• APFS is a newer filesystem which is optimised for SSDs.