Did you actually check with ls -la@ ? It would be unsurprising if mac did slightly different things between FAT32 and FAT12 or different partition types.
I'm not sure who/what that is, so no (I did email the person who wrote the Applescript for doing this installation, and they were interested to hear that it didn't work on my computer, but I didn't really get any new info). It may well be doing different things between different file systems, but I don't know how to fix it. And I suspect that the problem here is actually the same problem with both FAT16 and FAT32, since the Firm Update menu does not appear in either case.
The firmware update method is known to work. All you have to do is have a copy of the correct FI2 file in the root directory of the first partition on the card, without any special attributes or anything.
That's what I've done and it doesn't work. Are you sure its "known to work" on a mac? I think its known to work with Windows, but I haven't heard any first hand accounts of it working on a mac, and I've now seen at least one other post saying it didn't work on a mac (if I found someone who got it working that would be great). And it didn't work for me on any size card, so I suspect the problem with this particular bit is something to do with the FI2 file itself, not with the partition size/format, but I could be wrong.
Whether you think it should be easier or not is irrelevant.
Ok, but if your advice is for people to learn an entire programming language before copying and pasting one line of code for a one time installation, don't be surprised if people don't follow it. I think that's the point of having directions that tell you exactly what to do, rather than just saying "use linux to make this bootable." Of course everyone should always be careful about backing up their data, etc. If using disk utility to modify what is clearly my SD card were somehow to erase my entire computer, I could easily replace everything from Time Machine (which I've done once before when my HD died). I don't want to go out of my way to wipe my computer, obviously, but if it somehow did happen I wouldn't lose all my data. Its always a good idea to make sure you're in a safe position like that.
Also, I think that asking people to learn an entire programming language rather than just giving clear instructions for this one step would discourage a lot of potential CHDK users, and I'm thinking that in the long run its more advantageous to have more people interested in CHDK, learning to use it, able to answer questions, etc.
Thanks for taking the time to try to help me with this. I think my plan is to try copying the files using a PC at school, and if that doesn't work I will probably buy another 4 gig card.