November 2005
Beginner to intermediate
528 pages
24h 11m
English
Content preview from Mac OS X Tiger in a NutshellBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Exploring root
The root directory of a Mac OS X boot disk has the most to hide, from the Finder’s point of view; it may play root to as many as three separate operating systems’ filesystems, all at once! Beyond holding the lowest-level directories of the Mac OS X filesystem, such as the /System and /Library folders, the root directory also contains the basic directories that Darwin—the pure Unix system running at Mac OS X’s core—needs. These include the directories that any Unix user would recognize, such as /etc and /tmp. Compare Figure 9-3 with Figure 9-4.
Furthermore, if Mac OS 9 is installed on the boot disk, its System Folder appears under the root directory, as do several Mac OS 9 configuration files. Other arbitrary files and folders created by the Mac OS 9 application might also exist at root because that operating system lacks Mac OS X’s permission system and doesn’t view the root directory as “sacred ground.” For example, many Mac OS 9 software installers create new folders directly under root; Mac OS X installers place their software in locations such as /Applications/Library.
Mac OS X’s Finder, when displaying the boot disk’s root folder, will show most of the low-level Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 filesystems’ folders, but keep several special files hidden from sight, and it won’t show any of Darwin’s directories.
Hidden Mac OS 9 files
This isn’t a book about Mac OS 9, so we won’t go into detail about these files’ functions. However, it’s worthwhile to point out their presence ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.