So I've installed over the past few days XCode 3.1 and iTunes 8. Today I installed the iPhone Configuration Utility (an enterprise config app which I believe is useless for what I wanted it for - another topic).

This last installer, like so many from Apple, obliterates symbolic links for paths it wants to use and replaces them with real folders. Arrrgh, when are they going to fix their POS installer...

I keep apps on a volume other than my boot and in trying to fix my Applications link I was getting errors on the command line. So I list the contents of /bin and this is what I see:

Code:
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    46720 Nov 28  2007 [
-rwxr-xr-x      1 root  wheel  1244928 Mar  5  2008 bash
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    43296 Mar  5  2008 cat
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    56720 Apr 20 14:32 chmod
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    56208 Apr 20 14:32 cp
-rwxr-xr-x      1 root  wheel   610864 Sep 23  2007 csh
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    56096 Nov 28  2007 date
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    59776 Apr 20 14:32 dd
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    51424 Apr 20 14:32 df
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38336 Nov 28  2007 domainname
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38320 Nov 28  2007 echo
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel   114000 Mar  5  2008 ed
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    46944 Nov 28  2007 expr
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38416 Nov 28  2007 hostname
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38640 Nov 28  2007 kill
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel  2103664 Sep 24  2007 ksh
-rwxr-xr-x      1 root  wheel   133312 Apr  3 20:48 launchctl
-r-xr-xr-x@ 65465 root  wheel        0 Dec 11  2007 link
-r-xr-xr-x@ 65465 root  wheel        0 Dec 11  2007 ln
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    73696 Apr 20 14:33 ls
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38640 Apr 20 14:33 mkdir
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    47696 Apr 20 14:33 mv
-r-xr-xr-x@ 65471 root  wheel        0 Dec 11  2007 pax
-rwsr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    85536 Mar  5  2008 ps
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38400 Nov 28  2007 pwd
-r-sr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    56208 Nov 28  2007 rcp
-r-xr-xr-x@ 65472 root  wheel        0 Dec 11  2007 rm
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38352 Apr 20 14:34 rmdir
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel  1244960 Mar  5  2008 sh
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38464 Nov 28  2007 sleep
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    55744 Sep 23  2007 stty
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38128 Apr  8 22:54 sync
-rwxr-xr-x      1 root  wheel   610864 Sep 23  2007 tcsh
-r-xr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    46720 Nov 28  2007 test
-r-xr-xr-x@ 65472 root  wheel        0 Dec 11  2007 unlink
-rwxr-xr-x      1 root  wheel    38544 Oct  1  2007 wait4path
-rwxr-xr-x      1 root  wheel   982000 Sep 23  2007 zsh
-rwxr-xr-x      1 root  wheel   982000 Sep 23  2007 zsh-4.3.4


It was actually a bit more obscure with 858162 and similar numbers for either owner or group for the files you see that seem to have something wrong with them.

Of course the MAJOR problem is that these files are EMPTY. ln and rm being the two I was trying to use when I noticed the issue.

I have a backupof my complete system I can pull these files from, plus they may also be on the install DVD, but what else is messed up on the system that I don't yet know about?

I know that repair permissions takes some 30 hours to complete on my system due to pretty much ever file on the boot volume firing up an Access Control List error. There are also a lot of files which report some SUID setting that's incorrect but won't be repaired. Ugh.

Leopard has been nothing but a nightmare from day one. I should probably make another backup and then do a clean install without migrating any settings. Then just set everything I need to manually. This is starting to feel like the Windows days.

Any advice? It doesn't help that I'm sleepy as hell right now and can barely keep my eyes open... This will be looked at tomorrow which leaves lots of time for helpful comments. wink
_________________________
Bruno
Twisted Melon : Fine Mac OS Software