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Subject: 
Re: Have you got your NXT yet?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Tue, 4 Jul 2006 05:28:50 GMT
Viewed: 
5485 times
  

In lugnet.robotics, Tim Rueger wrote:

Mac support!  Woo-hoo!  And it doesn't suck!

On my Mac, the software installed its items
into the directory I specified ("Applications"),
which meant I ended up with the NXT app, the
"engine" dir, and other items in my Applications
folder.  I moved them into a subfolder afterward,
and the NXT app ran fine.

One very big caveat about this - at the end of the installer process on a Mac it
runs chmod -R 777 on the contents of the folder installed into.  Thus, every
single thing in your Applications directory (and all subdirectories, including
bundles) now has full access permissions for everyone.  Running "Repair
Permissions" in disk utility will only fix those apps with receipts in
/Library/Receipts (i.e. mostly just Apple apps).

Even worse, the uninstaller script that is created for you will delete the
entire folder that you installed into.  Thus, your entire Applications folder
would be deleted if you run it!  Simply moving the script to a new folder
doesn't fix things - the directory it's going to delete is hard coded in the
script!

Bottom line - if you're installing on a Mac, just accept all the defaults.  You
could be very sad otherwise (as I was).

   
         
   
Subject: 
Re: Have you got your NXT yet?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Tue, 4 Jul 2006 19:27:21 GMT
Original-From: 
Tim Rueger <trueger@yahoo.#StopSpammers#com>
Viewed: 
6288 times
  

On Jul 4, 2006, at 12:28 AM, Zachary Benz wrote:

In lugnet.robotics, Tim Rueger wrote:

Mac support!  Woo-hoo!  And it doesn't suck!

On my Mac, the software installed its items
into the directory I specified ("Applications"),
which meant I ended up with the NXT app, the
"engine" dir, and other items in my Applications
folder.  I moved them into a subfolder afterward,
and the NXT app ran fine.

One very big caveat about this - at the end of the installer process
on a Mac it
runs chmod -R 777 on the contents of the folder installed into.  Thus,
every
single thing in your Applications directory (and all subdirectories,
including
bundles) now has full access permissions for everyone.  Running "Repair
Permissions" in disk utility will only fix those apps with receipts in
/Library/Receipts (i.e. mostly just Apple apps).

Even worse, the uninstaller script that is created for you will delete
the
entire folder that you installed into.  Thus, your entire Applications
folder
would be deleted if you run it!  Simply moving the script to a new
folder
doesn't fix things - the directory it's going to delete is hard coded
in the
script!

Bottom line - if you're installing on a Mac, just accept all the
defaults.  You
could be very sad otherwise (as I was).

Ye gods!  Those are some huge bugs.  Is there any way
to report them to Lego or NI?  (Guess I spoke too soon
about good Mac support.)

I'm repairing permissons now, and I've fixed up my
uninstaller shell script.  But this is a big problem that
needs to be addressed ASAP.

-Tim

   
         
   
Subject: 
Re: Have you got your NXT yet?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Wed, 5 Jul 2006 04:11:03 GMT
Viewed: 
6447 times
  

In lugnet.robotics, Tim Rueger wrote:
Ye gods!  Those are some huge bugs.  Is there any way
to report them to Lego or NI?  (Guess I spoke too soon
about good Mac support.)

I sent this to Lego Tech Support:
(http://www.lego.com/eng/service/techsupportcontactus.asp)

There is a serious bug in the Lego Mindstorms NXT software for Macintosh.  At
the end of the installation process, the software runs "chmod -R 777" on the
contents of the folder into which you have decided to install.  Due to a lack of
clarity in the installer about where the software will actually be installed I
chose to specify the "Applications" folder on my computer to install into (I am
not the only person to have done this, based on discussions on lugnet.com).  As
a result,  the permissions on ALL of the files in my Applications folder,
including all subdirectories and bundles, were changed to 777.  Running "Repair
Permissions" in disk utility does not totally remedy the problem, as this only
fixes applications with receipts in /Library/Receipts (i.e. mainly Apple apps).

Even worse, the uninstaller script created by the installer hard codes the
directory that you chose to install into as the directory to delete during
uninstall.  Thus if I had run the script, my entire Applications folder would
have been wiped out.

This is a serious problem that needs to be fixed.  I would suggest the following
changes to the installer:

1) Make it very clear where the default install directory is located.  It is in
fact located in a Lego Mindstorms NXT subdirectory of the Applications folder,
but this is completely nonobvious.  All you see is that it will install into
"Lego Mindstorms NXT", with no indication of where this will be placed.  This
lack of clarity is what led some of us to switch the install path to
"Applications"

2) Run chmod only on those files installed by the installer (rather than blindly
changing permissions on everything in the current directory and below).  Better
yet, don't use chmod at all!  Use the installer's built in capabilities to set
the permissions on the files installed correctly.

2) Make the uninstall script uninstall only those files installed by
specifically specifying them, and in a relative path manner (i.e. the files you
care about should be in the same path as the installer script, so don't hard
code a path).  Definitely do not blindly delete an entire directory!  You don't
know where the person decided to install, so there could be all sorts of things
in that directory.

Thanks!

I'm repairing permissons now, and I've fixed up my
uninstaller shell script.  But this is a big problem that
needs to be addressed ASAP.

Note that just running "Repair Permissions" in disk utility won't fix all your
permissions - it only fixes apps with receipts in /Library/Receipts (i.e. mainly
Apple's apps)

-Zach "The Lego Maniac"

 

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