Why doesn't the Mac OS X bootable disc have Finder?
Just think about how convenient it would be if you could boot up off the Mac OS X install disk, and then use Finder to easily copy your files off the corrupted volume onto a CD/thumbdrive/whatever.
Why the heck does it have Disk Utility and Terminal but not Finder?
Why the heck does it have Disk Utility and Terminal but not Finder?
Comments
Since I don't have a bootup disc handy, are you determining this simply by looking in /Applications? If so, Finder.app is located in /System/Library/CoreServices, not /Applications.
Originally posted by Placebo
Why the heck does it have Disk Utility and Terminal but not Finder?
You need Disk Utility and Terminal to fix problems. Any file manipulation you do in finder can be done via a shell.
Dobby.
Originally posted by Placebo
Why the heck does it have Disk Utility and Terminal but not Finder?
Because, by the look of things all those years under Mac OS X, Apple and the Finder got a divorce
Originally posted by dobby
You need Disk Utility and Terminal to fix problems. Any file manipulation you do in finder can be done via a shell.
Dobby.
and with the aid of a few scripts...it can be done way faster than finder too...
Originally posted by a_greer
and with the aid of a few scripts...it can be done way faster than finder too...
You guys must be joking. It is perhaps straightforward for us here, but think about the average person. This is not the traditional and user friendly Apple method. This comes from the NeXTies.
Originally posted by PB
You guys must be joking. It is perhaps straightforward for us here, but think about the average person. This is not the traditional and user friendly Apple method. This comes from the NeXTies.
The average user will not try to backup his hard drive or anything while booting from the install CD. He will run a clean install of Mac OS X, and see if it works. If it doesn't work, he'll run erase and install, lose all of its data, and see if it works. If it still doesn't work, he'll call Apple Care. If his warranty is over, he'll buy a new computer since Apple Care will charge him $3000 for replacing his hard drive.
Originally posted by The One to Rescue
The average user will not try to backup his hard drive or anything while booting from the install CD. He will run a clean install of Mac OS X, and see if it works. If it doesn't work, he'll run erase and install, lose all of its data, and see if it works. If it still doesn't work, he'll call Apple Care. If his warranty is over, he'll buy a new computer since Apple Care will charge him $3000 for replacing his hard drive.
How quickly memories are cleared. Back in OS 9/8 days, you could boot from the system CD and you had a fully functional Finder. It was quite intuitive and simple for everyone to find and copy for example some application that accidentally got deleted or save data from a corrupted drive. But the important point is that the boot disk brought you to the same environment as your hard drive installation. Simple, clean, homogeneous.
Not anymore. Between Apple and Finder I see only the divorce all these OS X years. Not quite surprising if we think where OS X comes from, but still.
Originally posted by PB
How quickly memories are cleared. Back in OS 9/8 days, you could boot from the system CD and you had a fully functional Finder. It was quite intuitive and simple for everyone to find and copy for example some application that accidentally got deleted or save data from a corrupted drive. But the important point is that the boot disk brought you to the same environment as your hard drive installation. Simple, clean, homogeneous.
Not anymore. Between Apple and Finder I see only the divorce all these OS X years. Not quite surprising if we think where OS X comes from, but still.
Back in OS 9/8 days, Mac users really mastered their computers. Beginners were not afraid to go and modify stuff inside the System Folder, because its structure was very easy to understand. I solved extension conflicts when I was 12.
Now I have the feeling that standard Mac users behave like Windows users : when they encounter issues with their computer, they don't try to understand how and why it happened. They don't even go look inside the System directory, since the insides of the directory are quite unfamiliar, cold and UNIXoïd...
That's why I don't believe that people would care if Apple put the Finder on the install CD of OS X.
Originally posted by The One to Rescue
Back in OS 9/8 days, Mac users really mastered their computers. Beginners were not afraid to go and modify stuff inside the System Folder, because its structure was very easy to understand. I solved extension conflicts when I was 12.
Now I have the feeling that standard Mac users behave like Windows users : when they encounter issues with their computer, they don't try to understand how and why it happened. They don't even go look inside the System directory, since the insides of the directory are quite unfamiliar, cold and UNIXoïd...
That's why I don't believe that people would care if Apple put the Finder on the install CD of OS X.
You are right as far as the system files are concerned. But when we talk about personal files in the home directory (or any other user-created files/directories), then the present situation is a big step back in user friendliness.
Originally posted by PB
You are right as far as the system files are concerned. But when we talk about personal files in the home directory (or any other user-created files/directories), then the present situation is a big step back in user friendliness.
You're right on this one!
It's just that I feel people are less curious with their computers than they were 10 years ago. I guess the computer has become a common consumption good, that's why people don't want to know what's behind.
Are we all using the same system??
OS9's System Folder was a nightmare for most users. "I thought I'd clean it up, so I threw away everything I didn't recognize." "Just throw everything in there, it'll figure it out." "Extension conflict? What's an extension?"
And you're right, you shouldn't be mucking around in /System. Why? Apple provided two other places for you to muck around in, where you're guaranteed not to screw something up irreparably: /Library and ~/Library. Get over the name similarity, /System != System Folder. /System == what makes your machine work. /Library and ~/Library == how you customize your environment.
I find OS X users are much *MORE* likely to be plunging into the Libraries because they know it's almost impossible to royally screw over their systems, unlike in the OS9 days.
Wow. Talk about completely different perspectives.
Originally posted by The One to Rescue
It's just that I feel people are less curious with their computers than they were 10 years ago. I guess the computer has become a common consumption good, that's why people don't want to know what's behind.
This may be true too. But guess what, a friend of mine told me earlier this year that some Linux distribution (forgot which one), comes now with bootable CDs. I don't know if it gives you some environment like the Finder, but the important here is the trend. Linux takes the path MacOS has already for many years, while MacOS, with the advent of OS X, did some steps back (in the aspects under discussion here of course).
Originally posted by Kickaha
I find OS X users are much *MORE* likely to be plunging into the Libraries because they know it's almost impossible to royally screw over their systems, unlike in the OS9 days.
Wow. Talk about completely different perspectives.
I don't blame the organization of Mac OS X at all. It's quite confortable not to have to open your System directory AT ALL, and it's thousand times cleaner than other UNIX environments where you have to deal with files in /etc, /usr/local/etc, /usr/share/ ....... Ok, you have that in OS X too, but you never need to go and tweak that.
I was just saying that OS 9 and earlier were funnier for beginners, because you had to explore your System folder and learn its structure, to properly use the OS. Sometimes (often), you just crashed everything when you did that. But it made you feel like an adventurer! I liked that (Ok, maybe that's because I was a kid when i had my first Mac, and it's all about nostalgia).
I don't even know how Terminal handles inserted blank CDs, let alone how most users would figure out how to do it. How do you tell the Terminal to commit your files and burn?
Seriously, this thread's replies stink of elitist apologism.
Originally posted by Placebo
You're saying that users deserve to and should do it the unintuitive and hard way? You must be kidding. I might consider burning myself an installed copy of Mac OS X to a DVD for that purpose.
I don't even know how Terminal handles inserted blank CDs, let alone how most users would figure out how to do it. How do you tell the Terminal to commit your files and burn?
Seriously, this thread's replies stink of elitist apologism.
Well, basically, PB was saying that it was a shame they canned the Finder on the install CD idea, and Kickaha said that everything was feasible from the Terminal. That's not so elitist for a bunch of geeks (I'm including myself in the "bunch of geeks" group).
I was completely off topic on this thread, but back to the hot stuff : I'm not sure that putting the full-fledged Finder on the install disc is an excellent idea. Most people don't know how to begin with when something goes wrong on their computer, and it's not even easy to guess what to backup/what to leave on the disc when you're not guided. Plus we all tend to panic when something goes wrong on complicated systems, and that can lead to situations were users can screw the whole thing up if they're given too much freedom.
However, Apple should IMO include an "Emergency case assistant" on the install disc. The assistant would guide the user and help him detect the issues that have its computer behave weirdly, and offer simple solutions to this problem.
Maybe the lack of Finder is because they figure that if your system is hosed enough that you're using the bootable repair CD, that you don't *WANT* to be mucking with the individual files on a corrupted disk?? Often times, that just makes the damage worse.
If Disk Utility fixes the problem, you're good.
If it can't, buy/use DiskWarrior. If it can, you're good.
If it can't, go back to DU, restore from your backup.
I agree that from step #2 to #3 is a big jump, but if you have a disk that is *that* hosed, you may not want the 'files' you'd get off of it anyway.
Adding a *simple* file picker for backing up to a disk image would be nice with Disk Utility. Nothing as complex as Backup, just 'add this to that DI'. Of course, that assumes a second drive, but then that DI can be burned to optical within DU. I think adding a full Finder would only lure the user into a false sense of security though. "Oh look! I can move and copy things no problem! I'll just refresh my backup copy of TheBigProject, and then... AAAAAAAAAAA!"
Originally posted by PB
How quickly memories are cleared. Back in OS 9/8 days, you could boot from the system CD and you had a fully functional Finder. It was quite intuitive and simple for everyone to find and copy for example some application that accidentally got deleted or save data from a corrupted drive. But the important point is that the boot disk brought you to the same environment as your hard drive installation. Simple, clean, homogeneous.
Not anymore. Between Apple and Finder I see only the divorce all these OS X years. Not quite surprising if we think where OS X comes from, but still.
I agree this is definitely a feature that we had that Apple are taking away - bootable CDs are necessary. I've had problems with computers and a bootable CD/DVD would have solved the problem very efficiently - I do not know UNIX nor think it necessary with a GUI OS. I think Apple is worried about people using them all the time but it worked well in 8 and 9 and I want it back. Feedback to Apple anyone?
Apple expect a non-techie to be able to use the terminal, mount devices manually, backup the netinfo db.nib and do all the other stuff that you could also do with a cut down version of the finder available in a OS X mini boot cdrom.
I've never used OS 9 or less and don't want to either, but I don't see why they can't take more good features from an OS that was brilliant in its time!
It can't be that hard to make a finder that lets you mount a spare drive or access the cdrom to burn stuff and copy data away over the network.
Dobby.
Originally posted by dobby
Apple expect a non-techie to be able to use the terminal, mount devices manually, backup the netinfo db.nib and do all the other stuff that you could also do with a cut down version of the finder available in a OS X mini boot cdrom.
Well they shouldn't. I know more than most and I know absolutely NO UNIX. This is sloppy from Apple - it's just not good enough.