HELP :( stuckin in unix

[Steradian]

Hey, my little cousin was ********** with my dads computer and now pather only starts up in UNIX. It has the normal Panther start up screen, with all the Little checks and such, but after all of that it goes to unix and asks me to login. When i login. Nothing happens other than a simple welcome prompt (duh). What do I have to type to get me back to my OS X GUIness? or should I just reinstall panther?

[BrandonRP0123]

Originally posted by Steradian
Hey, my little cousin was ********** with my dads computer and now pather only starts up in UNIX. It has the normal Panther start up screen, with all the Little checks and such, but after all of that it goes to unix and asks me to login. When i login. Nothing happens other than a simple welcome prompt (duh). What do I have to type to get me back to my OS X GUIness? or should I just reinstall panther?

Try ``exit''. That should take you to where you want to go. You also might want to make sure that your ethernet (or airport) is connected right. My Power Mac had an issue if the ethernet wasn't connected when Panther started up it delayed the initialization of a few things and everytime I'd login it'd take me to the text prompt.

[Westside guy]

You don't say what exactly you mean by "messing" with the computer. Was he mucking around from the command line? Could he have edited the /etc/preferences file (check the date with "ls -al")?

I was tweaking that file (after backing it up, of course) to see what I could see... and I managed to muck up my Powerbook - it was in the same state you describe. In my case restoring the original file fixed the problem.

I'm sure there are LOTS of ways to get to that state, of course - but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Steradian]

well to tell you the truth I have no idea what he did. He went on, and I came back about 5 hours later, and it was like that...

[Steradian]

Can anyone please help?! I think I have a good idea of what happened now, I *think* that he might have set the computer to only login as unix. Which is odd, cause it looks rather difficult to do, other than the quick and dirty single user mode start up. OK the problem that I have found is that my father never setup a root user account. *sigh* So logining in his account and typing "reboot" is not enough.(it says I don;t have the priv'es to do that)

SO, I have to set a root Password In unix, which I looked up, it says it is possible. So I followed these commands Here (http://noether.vassar.edu/~myers/help/apple/EnableRoot.html) to no avail. So, any suggestions, other commands I can do to create a root pass in unix under OS X. Please :(????

[MoparShaha]

Well, it sounds like there probably is some simple command that would probably take care of your issues. Unfortunately, as you have learned, finding that command can be hard, so I'd probably just reinstall. Not as gratifying, but it'll get the job done ;).

[Steradian]

My panther disk is at a friends house who lives a bit far away :(

[pepeleuepe]

I'm pretty sure this won't work if the things mentioned above didn't work, but its all I have to offer. Try typing "sudo reboot" it will then ask for a password, try just typing in your dad's normal password and see if it works. If you don't have permissions for a command, you can always put "sudo" in front of it. It gives super-user access for a short amount of time.

Good Luck