...and on a Linux basis, it is. But I dabble in all kinds of systems and I just discovered something that might be useful to one or two of you.
PROBLEM:
You have a late-1990's-era Mac (that you aren't using to run NetBSD or FreeBSD or some Linux coded to those processors) with OS9 or 9.1 and you forgot the password. Rather than research which file the password's in (which is probably visible using the version of Norton Utilities or the equivalent app for that OS), you elect to reinstall. But this wipes your unsaved files about which you may have forgotten, as well as preferences, settings, drivers, scripts, OS upgrades and apps, all of which will need to be relocated and installed. How to avoid this?
SOLUTION:
Don't worry about it.
It just so happens that the installer for OS 9.1/9.2 (and maybe further down... can't remember) has a curious set of options under the button labeled so. Using the "Options" button and several other checkboxes that come into play, you get three install choices. You could (in the presence of a pre-existing OS) reinstall:
* Without checking the "clean install" box
* With a check in the "clean install" box
* By selecting the "erase disk" choice (thus making a "clean install" check irrelevant)
Apparently these (ordered) options produce the following results:
* preserves settings and preferences
* wipes setting and preferences; leaves everything else
* bare-metal install - all user-added material lost
I tried the first option and still got the login for the password I couldn't remember. I then tried the second option since I wanted to avoid the third. The result of the second - amazingly - was that I was presented with the opportunity to set a new password, and upon getting in, saw all the apps, files and settings that I'd been afraid I'd lose, and in the places I'd originally put them.
[My guess is that the first two options address only the System Folder and that the third option covers the whole disk. Kinda almost reminds me of sys-unconfig in Solaris.]
Love Macs or hate them, there's a rationale to Macs that once learned, you can repair to and count on, since that unchanging rationale makes its own internal sort of sense. And here comes my theory about the relative business models: that's because there's time to write things that way, as long as you're not part of some organization that aims at being the low-cost leader via saving money on allowed programming hours, then pressing users into service as beta testers... but that would be baseless supposition, right?
