Finding the root of OSX

loom001

loom001

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I really have 2 questions:

1. Where is the root of OSX. How do I navigate to the root instead of always being in the home directory where all my movies, itunes, documents. I want to get at the guts of the Apple OS.

2. Where is the utilites folder? I am looking for the application that is the HTML color picker, that was added to Panther.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks ;)
 
DigitalColor Meter:

Applications/Utilities/

They do keep their secrets well-hidden ;\

As for the first, I have no answer
 
The system root is at /System
You can change where your Finder windows open in Finder Preferences: General: New Finder Windows Open: other and select what you want it to open.
 
So from the finder how do I navigate to / (root). I am familure with this since I use Linux and Unix at work, but I am having a problem from the finder figuring out how to get all the root directories to show up in the finder. I can see everything from the terminal window just find, but I would like to see it in a GUI. Thanks for all the help!
 
"/" is your Hard Drive. Can you see your hard drive on your desktop? Double-click it, and you'll be at "/" (in *nix speak)
 
The Finder hids /bin /usr /var /etc & all the things a regular user wouldn't want to see. You can use Go to folder from the Go menu and type in the path you want like /etc/httpd and it will open that folder in the Finder.
 
Most of those directories are hidden by default, so you'll have to either:

a) use the terminal with the "ls -la" command to list ALL files and direectories, even hidden ones, or...
b) use a utility like Cocktail (available from versiontracker.com) to make hidden files visible.

To access the root directory, simply double-click on your hard drive. That will open to the root directory.
 
You can also enter a path to a file or folder in Safari adress bar. When you press enter the corresponding file/folder opens in the finder even if it is a hidden folder. This way, if you know the path, you can open hidden files/folders in the FInder without enabling the "show hidden files" always system wide.
 
In the terminal, type open /. But like was said above, many of the normal *nix folders are hidden when viewing / in the Finder.
 
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