Hi,

> Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but I have a 
> 17" powerbook G4, 1.3Ghz, 512RAM, running OS10.3.
>
> HELP!

Well, NetBSD and Mac OS X have a bit in common, but I don't think that 
makes this a good place to get help about OS X.

> A mechanical problem I have is that the latch does not stay shut, it opens on 
> it's own and starts up when I don't want it to (like when it's in my 
> backpack).  Apple says it will fix it, but I need to have it sent to Texas 
> and lose use of it for several weeks.  If anyone out there knows of this 
> problem and knows a practical fix, I'd love to hear it.

Do it while it's still under warranty. It usually takes less than two 
weeks.

> The other thing that is such a pain is that the mac keep cycling (the rainbow 
> colored circle keeps spinning) often for several minutes, before it gives me 
> the log in dialogue box.  When I type in my password, the screen pops up and 
> once I try to do anything in any application, including finder, it goes back 
> to sleep.  usually, I end up taking out the battery, then rebooting, What 
> happened to the whole stable FreeBSD platform that this OS was built on?
>
> I'm so disappointed, if any of you can help, much obliged!

Well, that sounds like a hardware problem. When you send the machine out 
for repair of the latch, tell them about this problem, too.

It doesn't even sound like you're talking about anything related to the 
stability, anyway. Even if you were, the beach ball issue has nothing 
particularly to do with any FreeBSD code in OS X, nor does that FreeBSD 
code particularly relate to NetBSD's code.

Sorry, can't help you there. Maybe it'll be happy when you get it back 
from repair.

Good luck,
John Klos
-- 
"Capitalism is the absurd belief that the worst of men, for the worst of 
reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all." -- John Maynard Keynes