At 12:08 pm -0400 9/2/04, Andrew Stiller wrote:
And apropos of OSX annoyances, what can I do to stop being sandbagged by permissions-denials almost every time I want to overwrite or delete a file? Nobody but my wife and I use my computer, and I would like to totally zero-out (or max out, depending on how you look at it) every permission on the machine.
_Please_ don't try to do this to your whole boot disk.
The kind of corruption this can cause on *nix systems is very subtle, can have bizarre symptoms and can cause such a pervasive data rot that the system is unsalvageable. The system may appear to work properly for a long time, the contamination becoming more and more intractable, until the entire system becomes unusable.
And I mean _really_ unusable: Recovery in a worst-case scenario might include manual reset of the PMU, clearing all of the battery-backup powered chips including rebooting from a second hard disk while clearing NVRAM, PRAM, etc., formatting the drive back to factory-original, perhaps even restoring EEPROMs to factory.
If you must do a blanket permissions setting to rwxrwxrwx anywhere then your only marginally safe locations are the folders in your home directory that you have complete control over (i.e. Documents, Pictures, etc., but not Library, Applications, etc.).
One thing you _should_ be actively doing about permissions is repairing them.
Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder) will do this, as will a third-party utility like Cocktail <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18282>. A good rule of thumb is to do this both before and after any invocation of Software Update that does any installations. Doing it after installing complex programs and updates from third parties is also a good idea. (Doing it after installing Office X was...instructive....)
Restarting in single user mode (Command-s on restart) and doing an "fsck -y" followed by a "reboot" occasionally is also a good idea.
Another important step to take after any major System update is to clear caches. (The updaters should automatically clear all appropriate caches, but they don't always do so...programmer error....) Cocktail (ibid.) and Panther Cache Cleaner <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16494> are two of the utilities that can do this.
Part of the problem is that whenever I update a file from Finale 2K2/OS9 to Finale 2K4/OSX, tight permissions are created for it, and I simply don't want or need that kind of security.
Could you be more specific about this problem? Where are the files you are reading and where do you put the files you write? What were the permissions before and after? I'm not sure I can help (I don't have Fin2K4) but I'll try; someone else (e.g. Darcy or Phillip Aker) might also be able to help you with this part of your problem.
Is there any way I can get rid of this crap? It's gotten very, very old.
No. We're stuck with it, but then so is the user of any modern pc operating system (as were the users of any marginally robust operating system of the past). At least it keeps people from doing bone-headed OS <= 9 tricks like throwing their Extensions folder in the Trash.... Some of the steps above can help you ameliorate the hassles.
About 1/3 of the time, when I boot up in OSX Panther, the OS immediately attempts to connect to the internet. I thought this might be because it was attempting to register some of my new software, or that it was doing a Software Update thingy, but when I let it connect, it just goes online and nothing happens.
Why is it doing this, and how can I make it stop?
Since your replies show that you've eliminated the obvious suspects (Software Update and Time and Date), you might want to try a more brute force tactic.
What I would do is install Little Snitch <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17642>. Immediately after you install it go to System Preferences > Login Items (Startup Items, in Panther?) and drag Little Snitch to the top so that it is the first item executed (_very_important_step), then restart. You may be able to catch your culprit when you do so.
If you're lucky then it's just a matter of figuring out exactly who is calling home by examining the process name (for obscure and obfuscated names a disk search can be helpful).
If the internet connection happens before Little Snitch can catch it then it is either a function Apple has buried in the OS or something some other installation has buried too deep for you to catch it by this method. I have no suggestion how you would find that, but I think it can be done.
n.b.: Installing Little Snitch will require you to validate all of your internet connections. Please think carefully about each of its requests. Sometimes Deny Forever will make sense and sometimes Allow Forever will make sense; the subtleties between these may require consideration.
-=-Dennis
p.s.: Looking back at the ultimate part of my reply, I think I remember a system doing something similar to what you describe when I first installed it. I think I fixed it but, if I did, I don't remember how. We switched to ADSL at the office soon after that installation and, if the internet touch was still there, it became irrelevant (no third-party applications had yet been installed).
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