perplexing permissions

[Marssommes]

Does anyone know of a linux OS which offers a "single user" option? I am so buried in "permissions" that I wonder why I bother with computers at all. What are "groups"? Are they assemblages of people or are they kinds of hardware or software? Under group management appears a list of about 100 acronyms, few of which have any meaning to me. To further complicate the business each is identified with a group number. The instructions tell us the reason for all this is to do with many users in one system and that it is handy to assign certain authority and/or limitations to them depending upon their needs. Nice. What about at my house where I am the only human being and there is no network? The learning curve for all this sort of thing is a heavy burden for this senior citizen.

I thought that if I simply logged on as "admin" my worries would be over but, no.... Doesn't seem to make any difference. I plugged in a USB flash drive which I had freshly formatted with ext3. No name or files. I thought I'd drag some freshly downloaded movies to this device and use it to carry them over to my television to watch. Should be easy huh? Maybe for a teenager it is or a nerd type but for me "Murphys Law" is ever present. According to my computer the USB drive is "owned" by "root" and I cannot copy files to it. Sweet huh? I guess "root" and "admin" have a problem with each other????

Puppy linux has none of this hassle but it has other limitations such as availability of games for the user so I thought I'd try Mint which is getting rave reviews. Well the graphics are great I'll say that much. Nowhere in any tutorial are my questions specifically addressed. I have been told that "admin" can do anything on a system. Well that's not true kids. "Root" seems to outrank him but no amplifying information is ever provided.

Perhaps one direct question is best here....

I got a new flash drive and used Gparted to format it right here on Mint. The whole drive is now ext3. Apparently there is a method for assigning permissions for this device but I can't find it. Under "properties" for the USB device are the permission stats but they are "ghosted" and how one gets access to them is a mystery to me. Is it in the "Group Management" section? If so how is it denoted? What abbreviation or acronym refers to my flash drive? The second question is even easier. Is there a way I can login so that I really can do anything I want on this system without some damned software telling me that I don't have permission. It certainly is not "admin" as I had thought. But what is it? Please do not bother telling me the purposes or philosophy of "permissions". I already know those. I have no interest in being "protected" by software. I simply think that I should have the authority in my home computer system to do what I want come what may. Does anyone know of an "addon" that will allow "single user" to Mint?

If I could take away all the routines which are designed to control the human users in this system it would be absolutely perfect. Single user is my dream solution. Any comments? I mean nice comments. Those who live in fear of malware and external threats need not respond.

[xenopeek]

[Moved here by moderator]

Single user would mean you log in as root. You can do that, but it's not the solution to your problem. The problem is you used GParted, which isn't the right tool to use to format a USB drive. GParted is a system level tool, which runs as the root user. Meaning, after formatting the root user owns the filesystem. While you want yourself to own the filesystem You can do that by running one of the user level tools to format the USB drive.

To do so, please reformat your USB drive by:
1. Inserting it in your computer.
2. Once it is mounted, and you see the icon for in on the desktop, right-click the icon for it and select "Format" from the context menu.
3. Format it how you want. Done!

You may instead also use the Disk Utility program to format it, after inserting the USB drive in your computer you can find it in the Disk Utility and format it from there.

Note that TVs and media accessories may not be able to read Linux filesystems, as they are (I think) almost all heavily oriented on Windows. So, instead of formatting as Ext3 (which is a Linux filesystem), you may want to use FAT32 (for drives smaller than 4 GB) or NTFS (for drives larger) as that is what Windows uses.

Edit: If you absolutely, positively, got to run as root; do so by logging in as root on the login screen. On Linux Mint 12 you do this by clicking "Other..." at the login screen. Then give username "root" and password as you gave it during the installation of Linux Mint for your user. For other versions of Linux Mint the steps may differ slightly.

Though with the above you can, you should have no need (or urge ) to run as root. Only for recovering from some major system failure (with recovery mode from the boot menu). Most of us have overlooking something obvious while struggling with some problem like this, and the solution is almost never to run as root. I hope instead of running as root, you will ask a question on the forums in such cases

[kc1di]

This article may be of help to you in understanding permissions and groups.

the only linux i know that uses single user permissions system is puppy and some of it's derivitives. There may be others.
Puppy logs you in as the root user so you have full access to all files on the system, but that can be a security risk.
Some say it isn't but I'm not willing to take that chance.

https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/309527-understanding-linux-file-permissions

here's the link to puppy http://www.puppylinux.com/

[altair4]

Is there a way I can login so that I really can do anything I want on this system without some damned software telling me that I don't have permission. It certainly is not "admin" as I had thought. But what is it? Please do not bother telling me the purposes or philosophy of "permissions". I already know those. I have no interest in being "protected" by software. I simply think that I should have the authority in my home computer system to do what I want come what may.

Linux ( UNIX ), OSX ( UNIX ), and even Windows ( VMS ) patterned themselves from Server OS's so by definition there will be some form of users, authentication, and privileges. The only operation system that comes closest to your requirements would be iOS which is on the iPad - iWhatever series of devices.

[Marssommes]

I think you are making an assumption that I added a USB drive. I did not. I added an interior SATA drive. I did use Gparted though. Now the problem remains. The "owner" of the new drive is "root". My intent is that the additional drive should simply join with the existing drive to enlarge the whole. Sounds simple huh? Root is system you say? What's wrong with that? It is the system that I am modifying after all. I am not adding a device which belongs to any particular user. If Gparted is not the correct software to prepare my new disk then what is?

note; There is no Microsoft in my computer. I, therefore, do not format NTFS or FAT or any of that.

Thanks

[Moved here by moderator]

Single user would mean you log in as root. You can do that, but it's not the solution to your problem. The problem is you used GParted, which isn't the right tool to use to format a USB drive. GParted is a system level tool, which runs as the root user. Meaning, after formatting the root user owns the filesystem. While you want yourself to own the filesystem You can do that by running one of the user level tools to format the USB drive.

To do so, please reformat your USB drive by:
1. Inserting it in your computer.
2. Once it is mounted, and you see the icon for in on the desktop, right-click the icon for it and select "Format" from the context menu.
3. Format it how you want. Done!

You may instead also use the Disk Utility program to format it, after inserting the USB drive in your computer you can find it in the Disk Utility and format it from there.

Note that TVs and media accessories may not be able to read Linux filesystems, as they are (I think) almost all heavily oriented on Windows. So, instead of formatting as Ext3 (which is a Linux filesystem), you may want to use FAT32 (for drives smaller than 4 GB) or NTFS (for drives larger) as that is what Windows uses.

Edit: If you absolutely, positively, got to run as root; do so by logging in as root on the login screen. On Linux Mint 12 you do this by clicking "Other..." at the login screen. Then give username "root" and password as you gave it during the installation of Linux Mint for your user. For other versions of Linux Mint the steps may differ slightly.

Though with the above you can, you should have no need (or urge ) to run as root. Only for recovering from some major system failure (with recovery mode from the boot menu). Most of us have overlooking something obvious while struggling with some problem like this, and the solution is almost never to run as root. I hope instead of running as root, you will ask a question on the forums in such cases

[Marssommes]

Note that TVs and media accessories may not be able to read Linux filesystems, as they are (I think) almost all heavily oriented on Windows. So, instead of formatting as Ext3 (which is a Linux filesystem), you may want to use FAT32 (for drives smaller than 4 GB) or NTFS (for drives larger) as that is what Windows uses.

Edit: If you absolutely, positively, got to run as root; do so by logging in as root on the login screen. On Linux Mint 12 you do this by clicking "Other..." at the login screen. Then give username "root" and password as you gave it during the installation of Linux Mint for your user. For other versions of Linux Mint the steps may differ slightly.

Though with the above you can, you should have no need (or urge ) to run as root. Only for recovering from some major system failure (with recovery mode from the boot menu). Most of us have overlooking something obvious while struggling with some problem like this, and the solution is almost never to run as root. I hope instead of running as root, you will ask a question on the forums in such cases [/quote]


Ok I'll login as root and try that. I am so used to not having to login at all that I didn't think of it. I've been using auto login and missed that idea. Still I would greatly prefer to run as root all the time. I've never had a problem with malware except once when I got a trojan in a graphics in an email. It turned out that that trojan just sat there because it was written for MS, not Linux. I only discovered it when I sent the graphic to my brother who runs MS and it immediately then was detected by his AV software.

Another thing I can't stand is the computer going to sleep and then I get a login screen when I come back to work. I have no need of this and consider it a pain in the keyboard if you know what I mean.

Any ideas about avoiding this last question????

Thanks...

[Marssommes]

Note that TVs and media accessories may not be able to read Linux filesystems, as they are (I think) almost all heavily oriented on Windows. So, instead of formatting as Ext3 (which is a Linux filesystem), you may want to use FAT32 (for drives smaller than 4 GB) or NTFS (for drives larger) as that is what Windows uses.

Edit: If you absolutely, positively, got to run as root; do so by logging in as root on the login screen. On Linux Mint 12 you do this by clicking "Other..." at the login screen. Then give username "root" and password as you gave it during the installation of Linux Mint for your user. For other versions of Linux Mint the steps may differ slightly.

Though with the above you can, you should have no need (or urge ) to run as root. Only for recovering from some major system failure (with recovery mode from the boot menu). Most of us have overlooking something obvious while struggling with some problem like this, and the solution is almost never to run as root. I hope instead of running as root, you will ask a question on the forums in such cases [/quote]



I knew about ext being non compatible with TV sets but had forgotten and done it anyway. That's no problemo in understanding.


I cannot discover how to login in as root since my version of Mint (LMDE 12) has no such option on the login screen. It only allows those users who are created by "admin". I dislike having to use terminals and much prefer a GUI. Isn't there some other way to get logged in as root?

Thanks

[altair4]

I added an interior SATA drive. I did use Gparted though. Now the problem remains. The "owner" of the new drive is "root". My intent is that the additional drive should simply join with the existing drive to enlarge the whole.

There is no Microsoft in my computer. I, therefore, do not format NTFS or FAT or any of that.

A new ext3/4 partition will mount with owner=root and permissions of 755. Root can read / write and everyone else can only read. You have an infanite variety of options to change the result. Here are 2 examples assuming the partition is mounted at say ... /media/Data:

Take ownership:

Code: Select all

sudo chown altair /media/Data

Change altair to your own user name.
Keep the owner as root but allow everyone to read and write:

Code: Select all

sudo chmod 0777 /media/Data

[Marssommes]

I added an interior SATA drive. I did use Gparted though. Now the problem remains. The "owner" of the new drive is "root". My intent is that the additional drive should simply join with the existing drive to enlarge the whole.

There is no Microsoft in my computer. I, therefore, do not format NTFS or FAT or any of that.

A new ext3/4 partition will mount with owner=root and permissions of 755. Root can read / write and everyone else can only read. You have an infanite variety of options to change the result. Here are 2 examples assuming the partition is mounted at say ... /media/Data:

Take ownership:

Code: Select all

sudo chown altair /media/Data

Change altair to your own user name.
Keep the owner as root but allow everyone to read and write:

Code: Select all

sudo chmod 0777 /media/Data

For the longest time I searched for an instructional which would define all those "group identities" which appear in "group management". It would be so simple if tutorials would include links for those more arcane bits. Where, do you suppose, would one look without running to the book store to buy "Linux for Dummies"? I've been on Puppy Linux for a long time because all this hassle is spared the user. On Puppy no login is required at all. Other flavors should give the user the option to do likewise. Malware threats? I would like the freedom to decide this for myself. I do not need some programmer to make assumptions about how I would like my system to be arranged. Most folks, I guess, never question these things but assume they are necessary. They are not. Puppy (running in ram) proves this. Trouble is that with Puppy my favorite game (neverputt) will not play. That is the only reason I am trying Mint.

Thanks,

[Marssommes]

I added an interior SATA drive. I did use Gparted though. Now the problem remains. The "owner" of the new drive is "root". My intent is that the additional drive should simply join with the existing drive to enlarge the whole.

There is no Microsoft in my computer. I, therefore, do not format NTFS or FAT or any of that.

A new ext3/4 partition will mount with owner=root and permissions of 755. Root can read / write and everyone else can only read. You have an infanite variety of options to change the result. Here are 2 examples assuming the partition is mounted at say ... /media/Data:

Take ownership:

Code: Select all

sudo chown altair /media/Data

Change altair to your own user name.
Keep the owner as root but allow everyone to read and write:

Code: Select all

sudo chmod 0777 /media/Data

For the longest time I searched for an instructional which would define all those "group identities" which appear in "group management". It would be so simple if tutorials would include links for those more arcane bits. Where, do you suppose, would one look without running to the book store to buy "Linux for Dummies"? I've been on Puppy Linux for a long time because all this hassle is spared the user. On Puppy no login is required at all. Other flavors should give the user the option to do likewise. Malware threats? I would like the freedom to decide this for myself. I do not need some programmer to make assumptions about how I would like my system to be arranged. Most folks, I guess, never question these things but assume they are necessary. They are not. Puppy (running in ram) proves this. Trouble is that with Puppy my favorite game (neverputt) will not play. That is the only reason I am trying Mint.

Thanks,

OOPS I went to "Admin..." and "Users" and found that I can change my username and p/w but there is no button for "manage groups". Where, in Mint, is the "manage groups" thingie?

thanks

[DrHu]

Puppy does it your way, starts and runs as root, and you don't get asked for a logon
--that of course means your system is wide open to a local user

I wouldn't worry that much about remote, since your root is simply your user with perhaps a bit more control of the system
--behind an ISP and running a firewall (iptables) you are probably fairly safe even with root access running..

If you want to run Linux in its normal mode, you have to consider multiuser options; just as you do with windows XP pro and later windows OS (win vista, win7, now win8), or Apple OSX

That means you are stuck with being concerned with file access and permissions on any multi-user OS

Puppy's explanation..
http://www.puppylinux.com/faq.htm

Q: Security concerns
I have read that it is unwise to login as "root" for normal usage, such as surfing the web. I am concerned that Puppy logs me in automatically as root and I cannot run as a non-root user. Isn't this a security weakness?
A:
I need to flesh this answer out a bit more, but some initial comments:

Another thing I can't stand is the computer going to sleep and then I get a login screen when I come back to work. I have no need of this and consider it a pain in the keyboard if you know what I mean.

For that all you do is stop power monitoring controls, that is a screensaver or spin down the hard drive etc,,
--those are provided and usually only needed for notebooks (to save battery charge time..)

In my case, when I have finished a desktop session, I simply power off the machine, possibly I feel that it isn't a great idea to have phantom power running all the time, it just isn't needed

[altair4]

OOPS I went to "Admin..." and "Users" and found that I can change my username and p/w but there is no button for "manage groups". Where, in Mint, is the "manage groups" thingie?

I don't know what my post has to do with groups but .....
The "User Accounts" is Gnome3. It knows nothing of groups because it's developers haven't gotten that far in class yet.

Install the old version:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install gnome-system-tools

Then run:

Code: Select all

users-admin

OR, do it the Jedi way:

Code: Select all

sudo gpasswd -a altair group-name