[X-Newbies] Re: OS 10.3.7 on CD?

[Steven Rogers]

On Jan 7, 2005, at 11:52 AM, Mark Des Cotes wrote:

> While we're on the topic of repairing permissions, what's the 
> difference between repairing permissions and running fsck -fy? and 
> when should fsck -fy be used?

fsck checks the integrity of the file system, like "first aid" in disk 
utility.  "Repairing" permissions is an artifact of having OS X over 
unix. The permissions that are repaired are not "broken", they're just 
not set the way OS X needs them set to work correctly. The permissions 
are just the records of who owns the files and what users and groups 
have permission to read/write them.

fsck or Disk First Aid looks for things that are *really* broken. The 
things that "repair permissions" fixes may or may not ever show up as 
weird behavior on your system, whereas if fsck says you have a problem, 
then you have a PROBLEM.

SR