ummm ... sort of disappointing that apple wouldn't be thinking this far ahead.

also, makes you wonder if os x server doesn't have smiliar problems.

the system not being case sensitive is nice for lazy people like me but I'm starting to re-think that hitting the shift key to get a capital letter wouldn't be that bad.

hope this problem get's cleared up on the next build....

heh ... might explain some of the crashes I get with a perl based script that intergrates with mysql.

I hesitate to think of this as an Apple problem. It is more
nearly a lapse on the part of the LWP developers. Old traditional
unix file systems were case sensitive, but unix has developed
far beyond one file system and needs to be able to work on any kind
of file system that comes along (Mac HFS+, FAT, etc), and case folding
is more common than not. The idea that a new command could co-exist
with a 30 year old traditional command in the same bin directory simply
by making it upper case is clearly a mistake.

Well, to be fair, this is an intricate, legacy issue. If you install OSX on a unix formatted
filesystem (UFS?), then this issue probably won't come up. On the other hand, if you are
using a Mac filesystem (HFS or (I think) HFS+) then the filesystem is case insensitive, and
problems like this will matter. It's not that they didn't think of this, but that the
problem is more or less intractable.

If case sensitivity is going to be a big issue for you, then you should install onto a fresh,
clean, unix formatted disc partition -- but there's a possibilty (I may be wrong on this detail)
that doing so will keep you from being able to run Classic applications, and it could also
make it impossible to boot into OS9. If you want to keep OS9, then you have to keep HFS and
you lose case sensitivity, and problems like this may come up from time to time. The ideal
solution would be to go with more than one partition, with one as UFS so that OSX can run
"natively" and you don't hit these sorts of problem, and another HFS partition that can store
OS9 and its applications natively.

In any event, this isn't something that can be fixed by any upcoming build. If you want the
problem to go away, it probably has to be resolved at the underlying filesystem's level,
which means that you may have to do a clean and pre-planned install in order to handle it.
Short of that, it's just something you have to live with & plan for. That or get a second hard
drive & set it up to complement whatever you already have installed.

On the upside, Unixy things like Perl modules tend to be open source, so if you want you can
read over the source code & see if something you're installing might trample over something
you already have installed. If you know what you're doing, you may be able to adjust such
installs in order to prevent them from doing any damage. Failing that, you can always recover
any corrupted system utilities (like "head") from the installation discs that came with OSX.

wooooooo ...

hehe, you guys sure know your stuff. I'm still a newbie and comments like yours at least helped me learn something again today :-)

I guess what I was thinking was that newbies like me who go along and mess with their system will come across things like this more often than not from now on. And having watched Apple play with *nix in the past just made me wonder why some of the mistakes and system meltdowns that will happen a little easier to recognize. hmmmm

IF it wasn't for your post I would have never realized that I've created a potential booby trap of a sort. This tad of information definately wil probaly have saved me a night's rest somewhere down the road. Thank you!!!

BTW, what would have been the possible case scenerio here?

PS ... thanks for the links and information above :-)