No login screen: mistakes with permissions and deleting /usr/bin/login

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I have not been able to find a case close enough to mine to be of use, so I'm posting here in the hopes that someone might have some internal understanding of the system and be able to help...

So I recently got a MacBook with an intel processor and 10.5.5 (I believe it is 10.5.5, but I can only be certain that it is 10.5) installed (having previously used an eMac with 10.4.11 and a PPC processor), but it went through a university's tech department and had some excess baggage that I wanted to get rid of. I managed to remove most of it, rename my home folder and reshape the users to a more sensible configuration, but every time I deleted, moved, or modified a file in Applications (and some other folders), it required that I put in the administrator's password, which got rather irritating.

Having gone into the info of folders previously and set the desired permissions ("Read & Write") and applied to all enclosed items with success, I attempted to do the same for the entirety of my hard drive. However, afterwards (almost half an hour later), I was unable to delete, move, or modify any files at all, and a number of programs did not work (including Terminal, which spat out a terrible three-line error involving the failure of login, and DiskUtility, which proclaimed that it had a failure on exit when I attempted to verify disk permissions). As I was probably justified in worrying about the possibility of not being able to log in again, I enabled the root user and logged out, and into root. From root, the programs worked, and I was able to run verify and repair disk permissions—but this was projected to take over 5 days, so, after giving it a good 7 hours, I switched to Terminal and repaired them through "applejack", which took under an hour.

I logged back into my normal admin account (I only recently discovered that it is recommended that one as inexperienced as I am should not routinely administer the computer), and attempted to resume sorting through and getting rid of excess files. However, the permissions were still wacky, and I while I was able to delete things, I was unable to move them, even to transfer over a firewire cable (that may seem random but it makes sense in context). So, following some advice I found on other forums that applied to the earlier problems with Terminal, now empowered with the knowledge of how to find it, I deleted /usr/bin/login... and that led me to my current state. I am unable to reach the login screen, and the computer loads for about a minute and a half before restarting and resuming the process. I can start up in single-user mode, but have been unable to boot from any install discs. In single user mode, I employed applejack yet again, and after a couple of tries, succeeded (really only through increasing patience on each attempt) in getting it to run through repairing the disk, repairing permissions (which threw several errors in the process:
kextd[206] <Error>: bootstrap_check_in(): Unkown service name
configd[231]: allow_crash_reports bootstrap_look_up() failed: Unknown service name
and the most irritating,
(username) configd[231]: InterfaceNamer: timed out waiting for IOKit to quiesce
after which many, many dots were printed before it moved on), and so on. However, doing this (even several times) has not helped at all, and I'm still stuck with the normal login loop and the single-user mode.
Any suggestions/insight?
 
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Wow, if you can boot into single usermode and have access to /usr/bin and can execute things maybe you can cp login from another machine.


I am at a loss as to why anyone would recommend deleting that btw.
 
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To fix the aforementioned Terminal error... Although I'm guessing that I was supposed to open Terminal in order to have that regenerate.
 
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yea, preferences will regenerate, but excecutables really won't. If you can get that back I'd then boot off the CD and use the repair section to repair utilities.
 
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I actually did copy login from another computer, using a firewire cable and target disk mode... When I ran the repairs after that, it recognized that something was different in login and presumably repaired it. I don't have an install disc (having gotten it through a college), so I'll ask around to see if I can get ahold of one and repair with that... thanks.
 
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So I still haven't managed to get an install disc, but I did manage to move login back from the trash and into usr/bin, and it still has the same errors... continual loading/restart cycle at the logo screen, and
<Error>: bootstrap_check_in(): Unkown service name
allow_crash_reports bootstrap_look_up() failed: Unknown service name
InterfaceNamer: timed out waiting for IOKit to quiesce

I also notice a recurring "ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root/Library/Preferences"" as well as on Library and root. From what I can tell that usually isn't a problem, though...
 
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I managed to get an archive+install from the genius bar at the nearest apple store. All fixed! (especially now that in the process I learned how to remove those annoying ACLs...)
 
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i have the same problem as Biogeek and I know how to fix everything but I don't know where to find /usr/bin/login, I was wondering you you could tell me.
 

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