I'd suggest going to the Mac support site and seeing if you can find the problem described there. They also have a discussion board for support stuff which is sometimes usefull.
Buffistechnology 2: You Made Her So She Growls?
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I don't know why it didn't boot to the Safe Mode desktop -- I wasn't given that option. It just gave me a command line login, so I did.
I've never had a Mac freak out on me like this before. I used to be really good at bringing PCs back from the brink of insanity, but I'm completely lost here.
This is what I see:
Apples-Computer: ~apple$
I'd suggest going to the Mac support site and seeing if you can find the problem described there.
I tried that -- anyone want to recommend a better string of search terms than "finder flash" "finder flicker" "desktop flicker"...?
I'm shooting in the dark here, but you can try rerunning the software update from the command line:
type "softwareupdate --list" to see if it wants to install anything that seems relevant.
If so, type "softwareupdate --install [name]", where [name] is the thing that showed up in the listing.
Apples-Computer: ~apple$
That means you are in what appears to be a bash shell with the current directory being the home directory of a user named 'apple'. That's all I've got.
Tom, it says:
Software Update Tool
Copyright 2002-2005 Apple
Does that mean it doesn't want to install anything, or that it wants to reinstall the Software Update Tool?
Apples-Computer: ~apple$
I was tempted to tell you to type
open podbaydoor
but that'd be mean....
Wait, it just added more...
Okay, it's listing the XServe Raid Driver, and the Airport.
We don't use either of those things.
[eta:
open podbaydoor
And I'd be tempted to try it, except I'm afraid of what it might do...]
What does "uname -v" output?
(Took me a while to copy it down)
Darwin Kernel Version 8.4.0: Jan 3 18:22:10 PST 2006; root:xnu - 792.6.56.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC
Apples-Computer:~apple$ in_delmulti -ignoring invalid imn (0x656e00x0)