The Terminal Application

[Bmode]

I've been reading quite a few threads and people keep suggesting to use the Terminal Application to fix there problem. I know where it is in my Mac, but exactly does it do? And how do you use it?

I posted a thread earlier, and again, suggestions to use the Terminal App and do...(whatever). As much as I appreciated the help, it made me more frustrated because I never got it to work the way they suggested.

Another thing, what is repairing the permissions? Apple care is just around the corner for me.

 

[mugent]

What exactly are you trying to do with the Terminal? Let me know and I'll try to help.

Repairing permissions basicaly means to reset the privileges of system files to thier correct values. You can do it with 'Disk Utility'. If you system is behaving strangley, or apps refuse to open, this can often be the problem.

If you want to see the privileges of your files on the terminal, open the Terminal (your home folder will be the current directory until you tell it otherwise) and type

ls -l

hit enter, look at the characters in the left column of text that appears, it will look somthing like this...

drwxr-xr-x

The 'r' means read, the 'w' means write, and 'x' means executable, there are 3 sets of theses characters, one for the user's privileges, one for the group's priveleges and one for everyone else.

Let me know if you want to know anything else.

Moray

 

[abhishekit]

The 'terminal' gives you access to the Unix shell. As you may be knowing that beneath this mac os there sits the Unix kernel.
Terminal can be used to do all the operations which you currently do on the gui. For example, you open finder, click on applications, then you click on utilities folder. You can do the same thing via terminal. First open the terminal, its in your utilities folder in finder. You would get this message:
Last login....
Welcome to Darwin
localhost:~your name$
The last character may be different depending upon your shell.
Now you can write all sorts of commands at that prompt and press enter to execute them..For a basic tutorial, its very easy, just follow this
link
Although its for Unix, all the commands work for mac os x.
hope it helps..
cheers

 

[Bmode]

Thank you Ab and Mugent for your time. What I'm trying to do is fix my view settings throughout my Mac. They are not staying set. Icons are all mixed up and the window view(background colors) options are lost.

I must learn Unix! I will read the provided tutorial link and get back, thanks again.

 

[abhishekit]

Originally posted by Bmode
Thank you Ab and Mugent for your time. What I'm trying to do is fix my view settings throughout my Mac. They are not staying set. Icons are all mixed up and the window view(background colors) options are lost.

I must learn Unix! I will read the provided tutorial link and get back, thanks again.

try repairing permissions..
goto finder-applications-utilities-disk utility
then select your hard drive and repair permissions...
hope it would help..
cheers

 

[jxyama]

Originally posted by Bmode
Thank you Ab and Mugent for your time. What I'm trying to do is fix my view settings throughout my Mac. They are not staying set. Icons are all mixed up and the window view(background colors) options are lost.

I must learn Unix! I will read the provided tutorial link and get back, thanks again.

i may have been the one who suggested this.. the only reason i suggested using the terminal (to check the timestamp on one of the hidden files... .DS_Store) is that it's very easy to get a list of files, even hidden ones, via terminal. (as opposed to Finder.)

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Bmode
Thank you Ab and Mugent for your time. What I'm trying to do is fix my view settings throughout my Mac. They are not staying set. Icons are all mixed up and the window view(background colors) options are lost.

I must learn Unix! I will read the provided tutorial link and get back, thanks again.

As I stated in the other thread the terminal commands that I was trying to take you through are not to fix the problem simply to check to see if the file associated with the problem has been updated and therefore hopefully fixed.

I think I just realized what your problem is. Download this program.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10491

Run it and see if that fixes your problems. The program performs OSX's 3 clean up tasks that would normally be performed at night if the machine was left on and not asleep. One task is performed monthly another is weekly and the last one is daily. This program allows you to run them manually which is a good thing since most people don't leave their machine on over night and not asleep.

If that doesn't work I have another idea.

 

[Bmode]

So what's your other idea Bandit?(lol in frustration) I ran Macjanitor and repaired the permissions, then restarted and no go. Boy this is a doozie, but thanks to you guys I'll tread on!

Does the location of a particular application have to be in any one paticular folder? Because I've moved certain apps to certain folders. For instance, I've created a Project Center folder where I keep my creative movie making stuff, and an audio folder for all audio applications.

Should I be putting these apps in my User/Home/Bmode folder? Because there isn't a single app in this folder?

Oh, another thing, going to versiontracker.com, when I hit the "download now" link for particular item, it rarely automatically downloads anymore, and for the MacJanitor page, I had to quickly hit the link with a "right click" which prompts the 4 items to force a download to desktop. Is this just versiontracker.com or is Safari being difficult too?

Thanks again gents!

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Bmode
So what's your other idea Bandit?(lol in frustration) I ran Macjanitor and repaired the permissions, then restarted and no go. Boy this is a doozie, but thanks to you guys I'll tread on!

Does the location of a particular application have to be in any one paticular folder? Because I've moved certain apps to certain folders. For instance, I've created a Project Center folder where I keep my creative movie making stuff, and an audio folder for all audio applications.

Should I be putting these apps in my User/Home/Bmode folder? Because there isn't a single app in this folder?

Oh, another thing, going to versiontracker.com, when I hit the "download now" link for particular item, it rarely automatically downloads anymore, and for the MacJanitor page, I had to quickly hit the link with a "right click" which prompts the 4 items to force a download to desktop. Is this just versiontracker.com or is Safari being difficult too?

Thanks again gents!

Versiontracker will auto download you just have to give it some time to redirect and auto-connect to the download server.

Okay here's the next option download OnyX. Run the clear cache option with the system and user caches all selected. Don't worry about the Safari caches.

Try restarting and see if that helped. If not then reopen OnyX and go to the finder tab and under preferences chose Hidden files and preference files. Then click to delete them.

 

[Bmode]

Yeah, it's stickin' like Popeye's Chicken!!! I think it was OnyX that did the job! Oops wait a min, this folder didn't retain the options, but who cares, after three restarts, my primary folders are maintaining the view settings!

Thanks to all of you, MacBandit, jxyama, abhishekit, mugent, and moderators for this wonderful forum. If there's anything I could do in return, hit me up anytime...Bmode.

Here's my next topic to help a friend. He's missing the Sherlock channels - Internet, Pictures, Stocks, Movies buttons etc... I think when he installed Panther on his new iMac G4 17' FP, he wasn't hooked up to the internet so that Sherlock could setup, the question is now how does he activate those great channels? He is now on cable modem. Does he have to re-install panther?

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Bmode
Yeah, it's stickin' like Popeye's Chicken!!! I think it was OnyX that did the job! Oops wait a min, this folder didn't retain the options, but who cares, after three restarts, my primary folders are maintaining the view settings!

Thanks to all of you, MacBandit, jxyama, abhishekit, mugent, and moderators for this wonderful forum. If there's anything I could do in return, hit me up anytime...Bmode.

Here's my next topic to help a friend. He's missing the Sherlock channels - Internet, Pictures, Stocks, Movies buttons etc... I think when he installed Panther on his new iMac G4 17' FP, he wasn't hooked up to the internet so that Sherlock could setup, the question is now how does he activate those great channels? He is now on cable modem. Does he have to re-install panther?

The channels are probably there they're just hidden. Go to the view menu and if they are just hidden there will be an option to Show Toolbar.

I'm glad that we finally got your windows sticking.

 

[Bmode]

Sure enough, that's all it was...the channels were hidden. Thanks again MacBandit.

This why mac people differ from PC people, we just care more about quality and how other people use their Macs.

Grazie'...

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Bmode
Sure enough, that's all it was...the channels were hidden. Thanks again MacBandit.

This why mac people differ from PC people, we just care more about quality and how other people use their Macs.

Grazie'...

Your welcome once again.

 

[Bmode]

Hey Bandit, I thought the Simpsons were from Springfield, Illinois?

Do you know why the Simpsons characters are drawn in yellow?

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Bmode
Hey Bandit, I thought the Simpsons were from Springfield, Illinois?

Do you know why the Simpsons characters are drawn in yellow?

Groening was born in Portland, OR. In an interview he said that the Simpsons are primarily based on Springfield, OR. He went on to say that it's combination of a lot of places but the name came from here in Oregon.

Groening colored them yellow to screw with viewers. he thought it would be funny if new viewers thought the color on their TV sets was screwed up.

 

[Bmode]

Bravo, you're well steeped with Simpson knowledge. I had a e-mail trivia game going on with my friends and no one knew the answers to that one! And most of them were avid watchers of the program.

Cheers!