What's this SUDO command doing to me?

[happygo2]

I (stupidly) did a sudo command recommended to fix the overly wide columns in Finder windows (OS 10.9.2). I don't know what it's doing, but it's generating LOTS of output and scaring me! Any suggestions? The command and a few of many lines from the output follow. THANKS!

MBPejr:~ ra$ sudo find / -name .DS_Store -delete; killall Finder
Password:
find: /dev/fd/3: Not a directory
find: /dev/fd/4: Not a directory
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/private/var/root/Library/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/private/var/root/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/private/var/root/Desktop/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/private/etc/apache2/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/private/etc/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/private/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/0 DUM for date of SupDup Bkups/.DS_Store): Read-only file system

find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/IMAP/BodyTypeMultipart: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/HTTPPreconditionFailed: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/HTTPSeeOther: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/HTTPClientError: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/HTTPExceptions: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/SMTP: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/HTTPRedirection: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/NetPrivate: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/HTTPUnsupportedMediaType: No such file or directory
find: /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-04-050011/Ground/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/share/ri/2.0.0/system/Net/APOP: No such file or directory
….
….
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/ejr/Documents/Docs BIG/Movies Misc/MISC Movies/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/ejr/Documents/Docs BIG/Music n Sound/ring tones/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/ejr/Documents/Docs BIG/Music n Sound/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/ejr/Documents/Docs BIG/PC DOCS n PROGRAMS/Stat calulators/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/ejr/Documents/Docs BIG/PC DOCS n PROGRAMS/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/Shared/0 CUR ISSUES/CS4 Problem Related/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/Shared/0 CUR ISSUES/.DS_Store): Read-only file system
find: -delete: unlink(/Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/MBPejr/2014-04-05-031937/Ground/Users/Shared/FileMaker/.DS_Store): Read-only file system

 

[maflynn]

Do a man find in the terminal and you'll see its just a search utility, you then include the -delete so you're removing all the .DS_Store files which OSX uses to store its settings like sort order of a folder. You then restart the Finder.

A good rule of thumb is if you don't don't know what a terminal command is doing, then don't run it.

 

[happygo2]

Thanks, Mike. A VERY good rule of thumb! (Hence "stupidly") I wanted to do "man" to learn, but Terminal was "occupied" in my Admin account, and I was afraid to open a 2nd session in my Daily account. Can one run 2 terminal sessions at once?

So it sounds like it's deleting nothing that won't be recreated when each folder is opened. I'm relieved. It's been going 1.75 hours so far. Just let it run?

Again, thanks!

 

[satcomer]

Terminal sudo means superuserdo, think of a temporary root user command.

A good terminal command that is equivalent to the windows command:

ipconfig /all

So in OS X (since 10.7+) is :

networksetup -getinfo Wi-Fi

(for a Mac that is only using the Airport card)

If you want to see what command in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app does then use it's manual for that command like:

man networksetup

Other commands you could see in action from the blog post Configuring OS X Mountain Lion Time Machine to Work With CIFS (SMB) Share. It will show some cool hacks that still work in 10.9.x.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks, Mike. A VERY good rule of thumb! (Hence "stupidly") I wanted to do "man" to learn, but Terminal was "occupied" in my Admin account, and I was afraid to open a 2nd session in my Daily account. Can one run 2 terminal sessions at once?

So it sounds like it's deleting nothing that won't be recreated when each folder is opened. I'm relieved. It's been going 1.75 hours so far. Just let it run?

Again, thanks!

Just let it run. Those files just tell Finder how to display in each folder and they will be recreated when you open Finder.

You can open a second Terminal session for man if you want, but it is much easier to read the man info on this page from Apple IMO.

 

[chown33]

Thanks, Mike. A VERY good rule of thumb! (Hence "stupidly") I wanted to do "man" to learn, but Terminal was "occupied" in my Admin account, and I was afraid to open a 2nd session in my Daily account. Can one run 2 terminal sessions at once?

Yes. You can even open multiple windows in the same Terminal session. Each Terminal window gets its own shell.

Do this command in one window, and you can see all the processes in the other Terminal windows:

ps

You can read the 'ps' man page to learn what it's telling you.

 

[happygo2]

Thanks. Semi success.

Thanks, folks, for all the good info and suggestions. It did finally end, and my computer is still among the living ... even if windows sometimes open with the new default column widths I set (with Cmd-j) , and sometimes they don't. So it goes.