contents of Application folder

[samjesse]

Hi
Terminal ls output of Applications shows different things than Dock > Applications. I am logged in as admin in this second hand Macbook I got. I can see the Mac name I created but I see the user name of the last owner. What needs to be fixed to sort this miss out?

Thank you

 

[chown33]

When posting questions about Terminal commands, it's a good idea to copy and paste the exact command you used, and its output. Please do that.

I also recommend empty lines before and after the pasted command + output. Like this:

ls -l /Applications

This ensures we can see the command separate from your descriptions or comments about it.

 

[samjesse]

Hi

I bought this MacBook pro with Snow Leopard 10.6

Login Accounts at start up:
In normal Boot. I do not get a login window with options of current accounts to choose from.
In Safe Boot, I see 2 accounts Guest and Sam.
Hovering the mouse over Sam I get yellow hint text "Short Name: nameOfPreviousOwner Local Account".

System Preferences > System > Accounts:
Both Normal and Safe Boots,
I get "Preferences Error: Could not load Accounts preference pan".

Dock > Applications > Utilities > Terminal:
Both Normal and Safe Boots, the command lines reads:
SamMac:~ nameOfPreviousOwner$


Command ls:

SamMac:~ nameOfPreviousOwner$ ls Applications/

In Normal Boot, the output is totally different than what is in the Dock > Applications.
in Safe Boot, the output is the same as in Dock > Applications.


Is this normal behaviour?

 

[chown33]

In Normal Boot, your default working directory is your normal login directory. This appears in the command-line prompt as ~. If you want to know what its pathname is, use this command:

pwd

In Safe Boot, your default working directory is /. This is not your normal login directory.


If you want to list the contents of /Applications in Normal Boot, you must give the correct absolute pathname. The correct command to do this is:

ls /Applications

Note the placement of the / in the pathname.

 

[samjesse]

So what is my username? is it Sam or is it nameOfPreviousOwner?
Why There is a login screen with 2 options in Safe Boot but not in Normal boot?
Am I a different user when logged in via the Safe vs. Normal boot?

 

[chown33]

So what is my username? is it Sam or is it nameOfPreviousOwner?

One is your "long user name" or "full name". The other is your short user name. I assume they both belong to the same account, based on the information you've posted so far.

Why There is a login screen with 2 options in Safe Boot but not in Normal boot?

That's how Safe Boot works. It disables a number of things that would normally occur during startup. One of those things is Automatic Login.

Am I a different user when logged in via the Safe vs. Normal boot?

Try this command in Terminal:

id

Run it both in Safe Boot and Normal Boot. Copy and paste the exact output here, identifying each one.

If you want to know what the working directory is in both cases, use the pwd command previously posted.