This should not be empty. Oops.

I broke my Mac (kind of). A popular utility, Monolingual, allows you to remove unneeded languages, architectures, and input methods from your Mac OS X, which saves quite a bit of space (it saved me almost 7 GB!) on your Mac OS X install. The good part about this is that while it does reduce space used, it can even boost performance, as there is less data contained within applications. The bad part is that you can remove too much. In my case, I removed all input languages, so now I can’t type – at all. Every key on my keyboard works, except for the actual letters, which is extremely frustrating. Rather than reinstalling Mac OS X, I’m going to write a guide about how to fix this the manual way. If you have your install disk handy, then fantastic. Note: the install disk MUST match the currently installed major version – don’t use a 10.5 installer on a 10.7 system! If you do not have a matching disk, you’ll need to continue with the following portion of this guide. To continue, we’re going to need an installer disk – be it a DMG, ISO, DVD or USB. The installers can be obtained from eBay, the internet, or Apple themselves. I’ve also made a guide for how to make a bootable USB Mac OS X installer from Windows if you don’t have a working Mac to do it from. Then, download the correct Pacifist version for your Mac OS X installation, throw that on a flash drive, and plug it in. After you’ve done that, make sure to save the following in a text file on your flash drive: an “enter” keystroke, the word “sudo ” (make sure it’s followed by a space), and your password. The enter is used because we need to press enter in a terminal, but our enter key isn’t working. Once you have the text file prepared, safely eject the flash drive from the system and plug it into your crippled Mac. Open a terminal, drag the word “sudo ” into the terminal, and make sure there is a space. Secondary click (control-click/right click) Pacifist.app, and click “Show Package Contents”. Navigate to Contents/MacOS, select the binary named Pacifist, and drag it to the terminal. Drag the “enter” text (select from the end of the last word on line #1 to before the first letter on line 2) into the terminal, and then it will prompt for your password. Again, select your password, with the enter “key” copied. Pacifist should now open as root. At this point, make sure your Mac OS X installer disk is installed. When Pacifist nags to buy it, go ahead and click “Not Yet”, and then click OK on the welcome screen. Don’t install the quick look plugin if you don’t need it, as we’re just using Pacifist to fix the Mac.  Select “Open Apple Install Discs”, and then select “OS Install”. Click Choose, and it will load. Navigate to /EssentialSystemSoftware /EssentialSystemSoftwareGroup /BaseSystem.pkg /System /Library /Keyboard Layouts. Select this directory, then go to File, Install Files to Default Locations. Make sure “Use Administrator Privileges is selected, then click Install. It will now say “Extracting Files”. Once this f inishes up, restart your Mac, and typing should work again. I’m glad I figured it out, given that it has affected many people before me. Hopefully this is a helpful guide!

guide!