Hello all,

Well Obama won, and i think that is very clear if you see all the posts about him. lol. Anyway, i had to reinstall mac osx,  and when i opened Macintosh HD it would show all my root folders. Folders like etc, var, volumes, bin, cores, etc. Files that aren’t supposed to show and could mess things up. I found a solution.

I was afraid that maybe once, i would accidentally drop a file in one of them, messing up my system. I found an application that is needed, called SetFile (password: poultry). Download the file, unzip it, and drag the file to the desktop. Than open terminal(/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) or type terminal in the spotlight. In terminal type: sudo ~/Desktop/SetFile -P -a V /(type folder name here. don’t add the parentheses) and press Enter.

You need to be logged in as administrator to use the Sudo command. Than it will ask you for your password, enter it. You might need to do this for multiple files, so it is easier if you copy the command, and just add the folder name manually. When you have done this to all the folders that should be hidden, type in terminal: killall Finder

And done. You have hidden your root folders again. Just to make it easier, these are all the folders that are not controlled by the Root: Applications, Developer, Library, System, User Guides and Information, and Users.

And if you are really into this, Sudo stands for: Super User Do. It’s the highest thing a user can do, you can change any file with Sudo. And root, is just the base of the Mac Os X operating system, the thing that basically keeps everything working.

It is generally not a good idea to go around messing with the sudo command, but if you really want to change something, than you have to enable it. To enable it log in as an administrator and go to terminal(/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and type: sudo passwd root

Then it will ask you for your password, enter it, and then it will ask you for a new password. This will be our password for the root. DO NOT FORGET IT. Or you won’t be able to reset it. Type one press enter, and type it again to verify. And done you are. To actually log in as root, and have a root command prompt, type: su in terminal, and put in your root, or sudo, password. when you are done with that prompt, just type exit, and you can close the terminal.

If you have any questions, just ask them in the comments, and i will try to answer them.