Multiple users question

[John B. Thoo]

On Saturday, May 31, 2003, at 05:32 AM, in Mac OS X Newbies I wrote:

> Also, the kids, currently using OS 9, both listen to the same songs
> with iTunes.  With multiple users, would they still be able to share
> the same songs?  I ask because I note that my iTunes music is kept in
> my home directory on my TiBook.  I really don't want to use up disc
> space by having to have two copies of every song on their iMac, one
> copy in each kid's user home dir.  Please advise.

Thanks to William Lane, Stan, and Charles Martin for all their 
suggestions.  (I hope I didn't miss anyone.  My apologies if I did.)  
After weighing each and trying, I've settled on the following solution.

First, I partitioned the 10 GB drive in the kids' Bondi Blue (233 MHz) 
iMac into two: one named "XBondiBlue" (7 GB) and the other 
"XBondiBlue2".  Then I installed OS X on "XBondiBlue" with each girl as 
an admin user (no flames, please! :-)

Next, using Get Info, I set "XBondiBlue2" to 'Ignore ownership on this 
volume'.  Then I put the mp3 files for iTunes in a folder on 
"XBondiBlue2" and, from each girl's account, set iTunes to find the 
songs there; I also put the files 'iTunes 4 Music Library' and 'iTunes 
Music Library.xml' in the same folder on "XBondiBlue2", then put 
aliases of the two files in the iTunes folder in each girl's home 
directory on "XBondiBlue".

Now, whenever either girl imports a song into iTunes, both girls can 
see it in the main iTunes Library list and either girl can put the song 
in her own playlist (that is visible to both girls).  Hooray!

Thanks to all.

---John.