Re: Copying over a user account #2

In article <haberg-0512052201350001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
haberg@xxxxxxxxxx (Hans Aberg) wrote:

> In article <ij1lf.2198$Kf4.2132@xxxxxxxx>, Charlie <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > > To clarify, in your example, if the directory is /Users/michael/, and
> > > your
> > > account has username (short name) the same 'michael', then you should
> > > go into the Terminal and type
> > >     sudo chown -R michael:michael /Users/michael/
> > > You will be asked for your password, and the account you do this from
> > > must have administrator permissions. This is (likely) essentially what
> > > the
> > > Mac OS 10.4 new accounts feature does; apparently, one has to do it by
> > > hand under Mac OS 10.3.
> >
> > This worked... however, it just put me back where I was when I copied
> > over that user's library over and his various documents.
>
> Fine. Then we are closing in. :-)
>
> > The user now has permissions for all its own files, but not the
> > computer's desktop.
>
> I am not sure what this last means.
Just looking at the folders listed under Macintosh HD/Applications,
desktop, documents, library, system, Users
(Then of course USERS have their own list that has all of the above
except for applications plus movies, pictures, etc...)

The Macintosh HD/Desktop doesn't have anything in it that I can see, but
it lives on the machine and the original user has access to it but the
new user that I created DOES NOT.

I can give procedure to follow, though.
> It would be interesting if you try just that, check if it is working, and
> the report back here. (Below, <username> is the same as "michael" in your
> example above).
>
> To move the account <username> to an Mac OS X installation:
> 1. From any Mac OS X installation, copy it in Finder into /Users/ so it
> becomes
>     /Users/<username>/
> Then use Startup Disk and to reboot from the volume where this new
> directory is located. From an account with administrator permissions do
> the following:
> 2. Create an account with user name (short name) <username>.
> Now, under Mac OS 10.4, you will be asked if you want to use the folder
> already there, to which you say yes. But under Mac OS 10.3, this evidently
> does not happen so then one has to do the additional step:
> 3. Open Terminal, and type
>     sudo chown -R <username>:<username> /Users/<username>/
> This completes the setup, and one should be able to log into the account
> <username>.

This is the procedure I have done and posted about before, with one
difference -- I dragged the home directory over from the iBook to the G4
via ethernet, with the iBook acting as the server. I didn't need to
reboot the G4 in order to create the new user account, etc. (But it all
behaved exactly the same as when in a previous attempt I used the G4 in
target mode and cloned the USERS over using Carbon Copy Cloner).

Either way, it worked and it married the user account with the user's
home directory that I dragged over from the iBook.

The only weird thing are that no access to Macintosh HD/Desktop and the
Gigs issue.


>
> > This user's UID and GID are the same number (502)
> > while the original one on that machine is 501 and 20 respectively. No
> > idea what this means, unfortunately.
>
> The first account that Mac OS X sets up on an installation has UID = 501
> and GID 20; subsequent accounts have UID = GID = 502, ... This means that
> you cannot sync these accounts via backups on two Mac OS X installations.
> If you want to do such syncing, the accounts must be set up in the same
> order on the Mac OS X installations. And in order to do the setup, one
> must have an original account to do it from, which is why I suggested to
> call the first account 'admin' (Administrator).

I am not worried about synching right now, I'd just like to get that new
user usable :-)
However, if the first account has the UID and GID of a first account,
what difference does it make if it's named Admin or something else? I
would have to delete the original user to change its name and that would
be a problem for me at this point.


>
> > I also still have 5 Gigs more usage than before (about 30% over the
> > original copies of that user), I restarted the machine to see if that
> > would cure it (it often does), but nothing changed.
>
> Don't worry about it: I used the UNIX command 'du' to check the sizes. Are
> your hard disks of the same size? If you subtract say 12% of the hard
> disk capacity sizes (for the directory) from each the both used figures,
> will they look more the same then?

What I am talking about is 5 extra gigs on the same computer -- I
expected it to take only 12 gigs not because of how much space it takes
on the original computer but because I have copied it over (then erased)
before (using Carbon Copy Cloner and just manually moving folders) and
every time it only took 12 Gigs on the G4, but when I dragged it over
the last time, it suddenly takes 17 gigs, again, on the same computer.

>
> > And the somewhat minor annoyance of the battery and airport icons
> > showing in the Finder's menu bar without an ability to turn them off
> > because the G4 doesn't show the option in the preference (the real-life
> > user who is going to hopefully work on that machine doesn't want his
> > preferences tossed out).
>
> :-) Yeah, I only moved between hard disks of the same computer.
>
> > I find it a little odd that it should be this complicated.
>
> It seems that Apple haven't given much thought to that people may actually
> want to clone their accounts.
>
.

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