the underlying task reported failure on exit - leopard

Here's what I get when I try to verify permissions in Diskutil. I just upgraded to 10.5.5 and did permissions in Onyx which reported quite a few changes. Didn't have any problems prior. Then just to be sure I used DU and got the error.

2012-02-24 12:12:28 -0800: Disk Utility stopped verifying permissions on “Macintosh HD ” because the following error was encountered:

The underlying task reported failure on exit.
2012-02-24 12:12:28 -0800: Permissions verification complete
2012-02-24 12:12:28 -0800:
2012-02-24 12:12:28 -0800:

It appears that Leopard is the Apple Version of Vista. I've had nothing but problems with it and it seems apple just locked it up and moved on to Snow Leopard. I'm running an ibook PPC 1.42GH and am pretty much stuck with the OS I'm using.

the machine seems to be running ok so far but ican't upgrade Most Apple aps unless I go srtraight to 10.5.8 which caused a crash and to have to reinstall fresh. This time I'm doing incremental updates and so far I'm at 10.5.5. I'm really afraid to do the combined update for .8 again.

I read several threads when I crashed before that mentioned all sorts of bad stuff with Leopard and whacky permissions in various areas of the OS.

Can anybody give me some insght into how to make this computer run stable. I'd love to get some informed oppinions from other users.

Thanks,
Al

Given your various issues, I'm going to suggest you just replace the hard drive outright. In short, I don't think your problems are due to Leopard, I think the hard drive's going/is bad.