[Ti] need root help

[Steve Wozniak]

At 3:53 PM -0400 2004.05.29, Tom R. no spam wrote:
>No real solutions, but you ask for "suggestions", and it's an
>interesting question :-) :
>
>Just to check, was "initial registration" all you did in Dvorak,
>or are you just presuming *that* did some setting?  Is initial
>registration anything more than the creation of the
>SendRegistration.setup file?  I forget whether actual initial
>setup (time zone, default language, etc) is separate or not
>from initial registration.  And after, what else might have been
>done later?

Thanks. I looked into this particular PowerBook which doesn't stay in QWERTY for long, no matter what. I thought that it was one where I had merely registered it in Dvorak but I was wrong. It was a prior PowerBook that I had used in Dvorak for a while.

The current user of this PowerBook has run about every utility, trashed relevant prefs and has re-installed the system. She may or may not have done a clean install. I can't say because I wasn't watching.

So the default language could have been captured wrongly at any time. I at first thought that the registration let me choose Dvorak and maybe it has ownership of more of the system (or PRAM or NVRAM) than I did later when I made my own selections in the International System Preference.

But this issue of the PowerBook owning things that I should own pops up in other places. For example, I never found a way, over the last 6 months, to set the View Option of my HD folder or my Applications folder or my HD level Library folder and have it hold past a Finder reset or logout or restart. The system has its own mind of what the View Options are for these folders and I must have reset them as I like about 100 times. Well, I just installed all my software freshly and made all my setups freshly on a new PowerBook (also a 17" Al) and it doesn't exhibit this problem.

It's not fit for humans when such unexplainable things happen. Where did our LISA (Macintosh too) dreams go?

>
>Since you are guessing startup seems might be involved, does
>verbose startup give any clues?

I haven't tried that. But this situation is caused also when the Finder quits and when I run certain installers, mainly Apple ones.

>
>In any case, have you done a (maybe tedious to review results)
>file content search for eg "Dvorak" to see in what plists, etc
>it might show up?  And then try substitute eg "Querty" string
>in any such plists, etc?  Of course the hope is that maybe only
>one such file has the Dvorak setting, and it's referenced only
>occasionally; tho maybe there would be a few such files.  It
>seems unlikely actual kernel would be set to Dvorak--would
>kexts, etc be covered by a search-all-visibility-files search?
>Or package contents?  I haven't checked this now.

Great idea. I have SNARD so I could also explore system files. Thanks for this suggestion.

>
>The "root-level problem" phrase sounds a little vague, maybe
>hinting of bogusity in this context.  Did the genius bar people
>try a call to the special tech help they have available?  I once
>ended up talking to someone in AirPort development or some such
>for a technical issue I had.

I can't say. But I do know that the genius people are NOT told about known problems like the 2 GB RAM being incompatible with AirPort. So I don't expect them to have every answer. I'm really hoping for something like you suggested - looking at the contents of plists for the keyboard type.
-- 

Regards,

Steve  (is tv wake zone?)