On Dec 18, 2003, at 8:54 AM, Lee Larson wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2003, at 6:54 AM, John Robinson pondered:
>
>> I don't understand why the need for the repair permissions, but that
>> is just one of many things I don't understand.
>
>
> I don't believe there is any reason outside of folklore. I don't
> repair permissions, unless I see a problem that might be permission
> related.
>
> There's no more reason to think that Apple's Disk Utility will get
> permissions right than to think that Apple's Installer will get them
> wrong. My feeling is that you shouldn't let any disk utility have free
> rein on your whole disk unless the problems you're having are annoying
> enough to risk losing the whole thing.
>
>
I believe this "Mac legend" -- in the vein of being an urban legend ---
can be traced to the MacFixit folks (IIRC). At one time they were
publishing info to the extent that Installer was just copying files
from the install CD or the downloaded updates to your drive. A straight
copy which carried along the permission settings that were set for the
copy that was used for the "master" meaning the ones that were on
who-ever's hard drive at Apple's Software Development that was used to
create the master rather than using the ones listed in the tome/receipt
that the Installer places on the drive that Disk Utility uses to make
corrections.
I have noticed in the 10.3.1 and 10.3.2 updates that running RP after
installing the updates has not turned up anything to fix, which was not
the case before, so perhaps Apple has made a change to address the
issue. Some of the iApps such as iTunes are still another issue though.
I have also been noticing that with fewer hard crashes (gotta love
those improvements to the OS stability!) that things are not getting
messed up permission wise as much as they used to.
However, it can still be a problem that is tricky to diagnose (such as
printer issues), so it may still be useful to do this periodically.
Jerry
>
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>
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