Someone suggested that I use a program called Monolingual to remove extra languages from my hard-drive. It gets rid of all those languages that I normally wouldn't use and is said to free up 1GB of space. Should I use it? Is it a reputable program? I would like to have the extra space.
If you have a bootable backup, feel safe. If not, ANYTHING can happen. Hard to say what can go whacko after you remove languages. Delocalizer is another application for this. Read this for more help.
Yes, it's a reputable program. Just don't use it to remove PPC frameworks. If you do it will render all your PPC apps inoperable and require a reinstallation of OS X. Just use it to remove unwanted language localizations. Be sure you carefully review what will be removed. If you inadvertently remove English OS X will no longer function.
Well, not in my experience. I've had no problems with Office applications. Perhaps you had other problems present or used it to remove something other than language localizations (or removed English.)
You can have problems, however, with Adobe applications which do not like the language localizations stripped out. You will find they cannot be updated properly because the updaters will think the versions are invalid (checksums don't match, is my guess.)
Pretty sure it was Office (Word, I think). Was running Panther at the time. The only Adobe I was running at that time was Photoshop, and don't think it was that app that had the problem (might have been, it was a few years ago). After stripping out languages, the app wouldn't open. In any event, I searched these forums and found the answer to what had happened and how to resolve it (reinstall the entire app). The issue related directly to stripping out languages in that app, and was not a system problem, an updating problem, or other. Not trying to disagree here, just giving one person's experience. Other than this problem, I've never had a negative issue w/Monolingual.
I never had any problem with it messing up Office applications. The only app. I've had to reinstall is Adobe Acrobat. All other apps, including Adobe apps have been unaffected.
Just to add to the confusion of which apps may, or may not operate after running Monolingual.
The only issue I've ever run across is Adobe Acrobat Professional 7. It ruins that one every time. So if I'm going to run Monolingual (like after a new Combo updater for OS X, or a new large application), I make copies of Acrobat Pro to another partition first. Then copy those back after running Monolingual.
Otherwise, it's never done anything to Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS, InDesign CS, Office 2004, Quark 6.5 or any of the other myriad applications on my hard drive.
What may be happening to those who find Photoshop and other apps disabled, or the PPC frameworks as Kappy mentioned, is a possible issue under the Architectures tab. For whatever reason, the default for "PowerPC 64-bit" and "PowerPC G5 64-bit" are on. Make sure to turn those off. Also, as Kappy mentioned, make sure
both choices for English are on. Which are "English" and "U.S. English". One is a subset of the other, so both need to be saved.
Oooh- memory jog! THAT'S the one! I had just installed Acrobat Pro (almost never use it, that's why I was thinking no Adobe except PS) when I ran Monolingual. Now it's all coming back to me. Sorry, Kappy, let's just blame my brain fart on the 60's! I just did a reinstall after running Monolingual and let Acrobat be, with whatever languages it had.
Thanks for the help. I just used it and freed up 1.2GB. But, I am a bit concerned. When I had the app open I was in the languages tab and I romoved the languages that I didn't want. That went well, but what I am concerned about is that I did not deselect the PPC architetures in the Architecture tab when I pressed Remove. So, did I remove the architectures too, or was it just the languages I removed?
Since you have a MacBook, it shouldn't affect you. The PPC refers to the Motorola PowerPC CPU in all previous Macs. Yours is Intel. So any PPC code is pretty much just taking up space on your hard drive. At least for the OS itself. As long as you see no issues with the OS or any apps you use, then I wouldn't be concerned.
MonoLingual removes PPC code from everything it finds including the Rosetta frameworks. This will leave an Intel Mac unable to run PPC applications and will require a complete reinstallation of OS X.
MonoLingual is a dangerous tool for this purpose. It works fine removing language localizations, but I would not use it to do any PPC code trimming from UB applications. It bit me the first time I tried it. I had to erase the drive and do a complete reinstallation.
That's good to know, Kappy. But that's why I said, "At least for the OS itself." above. Makes complete sense that removing that code would likely kill any PPC apps running under Rosetta.
The recent release of MonoLingual claims it is now smart enough to know not to remove PPC from PPC-only applications (which prior versions did, BTW.) However, MonoLingual removes PPC code from any UB file and that includes all the frameworks. It does not limit itself to only UB applications. This is why it's so dangerous to use for that purpose. Other utilities like TrimTheFat only work with UB applications or files you specifically apply it to, but is smart enough not to remove Intel code from an Intel-only app nor PPC code from a PPC-only app.
I've reported this to the MonoLingual developer, but apparently he/she has chosen to ignore the problem (or if the problem has been repaired he/she has not documented that.)
I agree with you completely. Removing the PPC code shouldn't be the default. Heck, it would nice if the app would just remember your last settings. It's a pain to have to keep rechecking the languages I want to get rid of.
