[utkucan]

ok, i think i messed up big this time :S

here goes...

oh before i start - ibook g4 on 10.3.4


today i find my ibook a bit slow to respond and convince my self that it's due to unnecessary fonts on my system. so i go and download the suitcase x1 trial to see if it would be of help.

after playing around with it i decide i dont really like it so i decide to get rid of it. before that i collected all my fonts on "macintosh hd/library/fonts" to "user/fonts" but after deleting suitcase i want them back on the former location so i drag them over. by this time my fonts are a mess so i try to sort them out a bit. i also want to put some of the essential system fonts back to "macintosh hd/sytem/library/fonts" but realize that i'm not allowed. then i get the clever idea of moving the stuff in there with all the other fonths in hd/library/fonts. i start with geneva and lucida grande but then things start going funny so i realize i should probably put them back but ah - no permission. so i say oh i know i'll log in as root and put them back in. so i log out of my user get back to the logout screen - oh dear - the username and password words have been replaced by funny boxes and i'm not even allowed to type in my username/passowrd because system cant display the characters i want to type so i get the "ding" noise for every character i try to type. :S and i'm like "eurgh?" in an ellen feiss face

i'll list a couple of things i tried/know first

- i know that both geneva and lucida grande are in "macintosh hd/system/library" but not in the fonts subfolder.

- i can boot up from my panther cd fine but the problem is it wont let me upgrade because i'm at 10.3.4 and cd's at 10.3.0. so my best option is archive and install. the trouble with that is all my applications are in macintosh hd/applications and i think archive only archives the user folder :S


i was thinking:

- would it be possible to login in single user mode (i havent tried because i couldnt remember the letter for it) = ilooked it up now it's command-s = and copy the two font files over to the "macintosh hd/system/library/fonts" folder. could someone be kind enough to write down the commands needed for that because my unix knowledge is quite basic.

- if that didnt work would i be able to copy my applications folder into my user folder so it could be archived with a fresh installation?


thank you so much for your help already = i hope we can save the poor thing

[chris v]

Archive and Install willl preserve your applications in the root-level /Applications folder, so long as you check the pertinent checkbox in the options... dialog during the install.

That's probably your best route at this point.

CV

[Brass]

Archive and install should be fine.

The moral is: Never fiddle with anything in the /System directory. The whole reason for the existence fo the /Library directory is so that you never have to touch the /System/Library directory (which is for modification by Apple installers/updaters only).

[utkucan]

thanks for both your comments

well i went away and did an archive and install and did all the system updates and stuff and everything seems to be working fine. a few of my applications lost some personal data but nothing really more than entering the serial number again or such.

i think i learnt my lesson about the /system folder and i shan't touch it again

thanks again for your help

[Anubis IV]

Just as a side thing, you are aware that you can change permissions bu getting info on an items and changing the permissions around so that you have access, right? There shouldn't be a need to log in as root just to move some fonts around in the System directory. As long as you have admin access you should've been fine without the need for root.