Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored...

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Transistor

Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored...

Post by Transistor »

Hey guys,

I'm one of many who decided to switch from Windows XP to Linux. So I decided to join the LInux Community and installed Linux Mint LMDE Mate 64bit.

After every login, I get the following message
User's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permissions. User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by others.
Output of

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sudo fdisk -l
Here you can see my HDD partitions:

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Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x34fe34fd

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048   149415935    74706944   83  Linux
/dev/sda2       149415936   312580095    81582080    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       149417984   302098431    76340224    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6       302100480   312580095     5239808   82  Linux swap / Solaris
I use a NTFS formatted logical drive on the secondary partition for my /home directory. I did this because I plan to share the /home directory with Windows XP running a VirtualBox on LMDE. I assume Windows XP can't access an Ext4 partition (even when running inside a VM).
Perhaps NTFS is the problem?

Here's what I tried without success (according to this thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... ed-589557/):

The .dmrc file didn't exist, so I created one, then I changee the permissions:

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touch ~/.dmrc && chmod -c 0644 ~/.dmrc
sudo chown <myusername> /home/<myusername>
chmod 700 /home/<myusername>
I would be glad if someone could help me to get this fixed. If it won't fix, it would be interesting why this happens.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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kyphi
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by kyphi »

First, to change file permission:

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sudo chmod 644 ~/.dmrc
second, to change ownership of file:

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sudo chown <username> /home/<username>/.dmrc
third, to assign permission for home directory:

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sudo chmod 700 /home/<username>
Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon
Transistor

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by Transistor »

Thanks, but it doesn't have any effect.

It seems that owner and permissions don't change at all. After using the chown command, the owner of the file still seems to be root. I see this when I click right on the file and choose "Permissions" in the graphical user interface.

Any other ideas?
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kyphi
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by kyphi »

Here is some information about dmrc errors:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/dmrcErrors

According to your first post you have XP installed in VirtualBox and you want to share folders with it. That is easily done by creating a "shared folder" which is accessible by both host and guest system. Formatting your Linux home directory to ntfs is not a good idea. Linux uses ext2, 3, 4.
I recommend that you start again and format all of your LMDE installation to ext4, install VirtualBox and create a shared folder. If you are concerned about transferring data from XP to LMDE, you need not worry because LMDE will be able to read what is installed on XP.
To run XP programs in LMDE is limited. You can use CrossOver or Wine for some but not all. You will find though that there are very few programs written for Windows that do not have an equivalent in Linux.
Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon
Transistor

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by Transistor »

Thanks, I will read the suggested site tomorrow.

Yes, starting again and setting up all partitions with Ext4 is no problem.
So, is it right that I will be able to access the shared folder from Windows XP (inside VirtualBox VM), even if the shared folder lies on a Ext4 partition? Does VirtualBox translate between the file systems?

Is it better to create [two primary partitions] or [one primary and on extended with a logical drive], or doesn't it matter? In Windows 95-98 era we used the latter method.

Thanks.
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by kyphi »

Perhaps if I describe my present setup it will answer all of your questions.

Linux Mint 16 is on its own SSD in a primary partition, ext4. XP is installed in VirtualBox, ntfs but for security reasons denied internet connection. A shared folder was established for both XP and Linux Mint 16. There are no constraints regarding the interchange of data between the two systems.

You are limited to 4 primary partitions per any one hard drive but can have many logical drives. There is no "better".

Windows 7 is installed on its own SSD in a 50 GB primary partition, ntfs and on that same SSD in a 62 GB primary partition, ext4, is my Linux Mint back up directory - I back up at least once a day.

A third drive, mechanical, currently contains two primary partitions housing two Linux systems. The partitions and their contents are subject to change with operating systems installed and deleted as required and therefore partitions are also deleted and created as required. I have found it advisable when creating partitions on a large capacity drive not to make the partitions evenly sized because they then become too difficult to differentiate.

One last point: In VirtualBox you can "save the machine state" when you have a particular program open and you can then re-access that program within a second of clicking on the trigger. In fact, you can easily add an entry in your main menu in Linux Mint to access that program in VirtualBox.
Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon
Transistor

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by Transistor »

Thanks for the info about your system. The "Linux Mint" part of your configuration is exactly what I need on my PC (laptop), except a backup partition. I will make a fresh installation later.

Trying to solve the .dmrc problem, I followed the instructions recommended at the site you posted.

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sudo chown myuser:myuser /home/myuser/.dmrc
chmod 644 /home/myuser/.dmrc
sudo chown myuser:myuser /home/myuser     
chmod 755 /home/myuser
But after new login, the message pops up again.

I checked .dmrc's owner before and after execution of chown. It doesn't change, remains root! That's not normal, isn't it?

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myuser@mylaptop ~ $ ls -l -a /home/myuser/.dmrc
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 30 23:33 /home/myuser/.dmrc
myuser@mylaptop ~ $ sudo chown myuser:myuser /home/myuser/.dmrc
[sudo] password for myuser: 
myuser@mylaptop ~ $ ls -l -a /home/myuser/.dmrc
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 30 23:33 /home/myuser/.dmrc
Same for chmod. Permissions don't seem to change, or are they already correct?

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myuser@mylaptop ~ $ ls -l -a /home/myuser/.dmrc
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 30 23:33 /home/myuser/.dmrc
myuser@mylaptop ~ $ chmod 644 /home/myuser/.dmrc
myuser@mylaptop ~ $ ls -l -a /home/myuser/.dmrc
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 30 23:33 /home/myuser/.dmrc
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by austin.texas »

I don't understand why sudo chown myuser:myuser /home/myuser/.dmrc would not work
Maybe you could rename .dmrc as root
sudo mv .dmrc .dmrcBAK
Then open that in a text editor as user, not root, select all, copy, open a new document, paste, and save as .dmrc
Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, Quad core AMD A8-3870 with Radeon HD Graphics 6550D, 8GB DDR3, Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
Linux Linx 2018
Transistor

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by Transistor »

Thanks for the suggestion, I renamed the file as "root" and created a new one as "myuser" (file is and was empty). But I think this won't solve the problem because the new file's owner is root again.

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myuser@mylaptop ~ $ ls -l -a .dmrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Mai  3 23:20 .dmrc
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 30 23:33 .dmrcBAK
When I create a file with the touch command as "myuser", the file's owner will also be root.

Is there something wrong with my user profile?
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by kyphi »

I do not understand why you cannot change the owner of the .dmrc file but suggest that you create a new .dmrc file using a method other than "touch".

First, delete or move the existing .dmrc file.
Second, open your Text Editor and save the empty text file to your home directory as .dmrc.

I don't know what a LMDE .dmrc file should contain but it probably would be very little. In Cinnamon, mine only has 1. [Desktop] 2. Session=cinnamon
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by austin.texas »

I just followed the procedure I suggested to you and it gave me different results.
As root I created a text file, /home/myusername/.testdmrc
After saving, it was owned by root.
I opened it in a text editor as user, select all, copy, open new document, paste, save as .testdmrc2
Now .testdmrc2 is there, and owned by user.
Then I ran sudo chown dan:dan .testdmrc
and now .testdmrc is owned by dan

It has to be because your home is on a NTFS partition. You simply can't control permissions and ownership the same as with a ext partition.
I think the answer is to install with no separate home, and just use the NTFS partition as data storage.
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by austin.texas »

If you don't want to re-install, you can change your home to sda1.
(Your sda1 is plenty big enough - actually, 20GB is all you need.)
It is a bit tricky, but it can be done.
You would have to create a /home directory, owned by root, on sda1. Then create a user directory (yourusername), owned by user.
Then right-click on the user folder you just created and Open in Terminal, and create a mount point:
mkdir /home/yourusername/mount_sda5

Then copy (as user) all of the hidden files and folders on sda5 (including .dmrc !) to /home/yourusername.

Then edit your fstab and comment out the line which designates sda5 as /home. (Put a # in front of the line.)
Then you need to automount sda5 just as a data partition:
Add these two lines to fstab, edit yourusername and correct UUID:
# mount sda5 on /home/yourusername/mount_sda5
UUID=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX /home/yourusername/mount_sda5 ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2

Save the fstab file, open a terminal, and run:
mount -a

Now, the last step is to create symlinks in /home/yourusername on sda1 to link to the basic directories on sda5.
(ln is L as in link)
ln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Desktop /home/yourusername/Desktop
ln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Documents /home/yourusername/Documents
ln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Pictures /home/yourusername/Pictures
ln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Downloads /home/yourusername/Downloads
ln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Music /home/yourusername/Music

etc. Repeat for any directories on sda5 that you want to appear in /home on sda1

That's it! Welcome to your new /home.
Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, Quad core AMD A8-3870 with Radeon HD Graphics 6550D, 8GB DDR3, Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
Linux Linx 2018
Transistor

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by Transistor »

@kyphi:
I do not understand why you cannot change the owner of the .dmrc file but suggest that you create a new .dmrc file using a method other than "touch".
Yes, I created the .dmrc file with the text editor :(. I mentioned "touch" only as another possibility...

@austin.texas
I will make a fresh install, but also want to try your suggestion about moving the home folder before, so I can learn more about the linux file system.
I, as a linux newbie, do not understand two things in your post.

First, look at my /etc/fstab here, please. Why are the device names commented out? How does the OS know which filesystem to mount at the mount point? Is the filesystem identified by the UUID, and how is the UUID linked to the file system?

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# UNCONFIGURED FSTAB FOR BASE SYSTEM
proc	/proc	proc	defaults	0	0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=e4cd8f00-3b0b-47ba-9c22-f63feb93e3ec	/	ext4	rw,errors=remount-ro	0	1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=1609906749D77127	/home	ntfs	defaults	0	0
# /dev/sda6
UUID=c5a85926-88e3-4ae9-8feb-53130df716b7	swap	swap	sw	0	0
[EDIT] I found out how to get the mapping of UUIDs to devices

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ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
Usage of UUIDs is explained here: http://www.fene-blog.de/linux/linux-fes ... -per-uuid/ (in German)
[/EDIT]

Second, you wrote I would have to create a /home directory on sda1. To create it on sda1, I think I have to create it in the / folder, because sda1 is mounted at /, right? But in the filesystem, /home is already a subfolder of /, so I think I cannot create another /home directory in it, can I?
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by austin.texas »

Transistor wrote:I, as a linux newbie, do not understand two things in your post. First, look at my /etc/fstab here, please. Why are the device names commented out?
Those lines are commented out because they are meant to be comments explaining what the next line is for. Actually, they should be more descriptive. Mine look like this:
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=1f9a81da-3ce9-4846-92b7-aa0297d91777 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sdc2 during installation
UUID=56b2736a-2fb3-4ccc-8534-6dbb5b9085cb none swap sw 0 0
# mount sdc3 on /home/dan/data_sdc3
UUID=adea401f-1b5a-4ae1-922c-393dce06a3c4 /home/dan/data_sdc3 ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2
Transistor wrote:How does the OS know which filesystem to mount at the mount point? Is the filesystem identified by the UUID, and how is the UUID linked to the file system?
Every partition can be identified by DEVICE (/dev/sda1), or LABEL (if you assign a label), or UUID. The UUID is a long string of numbers assigned to each partition when the partition is created.
Mint uses the UUID to identify the partitons in fstab. A few years ago, Mint used to use the DEVICE designation in fstab.
Where your fstab says "UUID=1609906749D77127 /home ntfs defaults 0 0", it would act the same if it said "/dev/sda5 /home ntfs defaults 0 0"
You can see the UUID numbers for your partitions by entering the command blkid in a terminal.
Transistor wrote:Second, you wrote I would have to create a /home directory on sda1. To create it on sda1, I think I have to create it in the / folder, because sda1 is mounted at /, right? But in the filesystem, /home is already a subfolder of /, so I think I cannot create another /home directory in it, can I?
You are right. It has been a very long time since I installed using a separate /home, and I assumed that you would have to create it. Let me do some further research on that question...
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Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by austin.texas »

OK, when you designate a separate /home, like sda5, you do already have a /home directory on sda1, owned by root, so that part is done.
However, when you look at that in your file manager, you see a directory with your user name, containing all the folders that you would expect - Music, Downloads, Desktop, etc. Those folders do not exist on sda1, in spite of the way it looks in your file manager. You can prove that by booting your live DVD or USB, and looking at sda1. There will be nothing there except /home with no contents.
That is because your fstab mounts sda5 using that /home directory as the mount point, making the folders on sda5 appear to be on sda1.
Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, Quad core AMD A8-3870 with Radeon HD Graphics 6550D, 8GB DDR3, Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
Linux Linx 2018
Transistor

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by Transistor »

Thanks for the description. I tried to move the /home folder. It worked!
Now I also could fix the .dmrc error :)
So, as a conclusion, I could say that NTFS was the wrong file system for the /home partition.

But, now I'm still going to re-install LMDE.

Is it safe to perform

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apt-get dist-upgrade
directly after a fresh install of LMDE 201403 MATE?
arclighter

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by arclighter »

The solution at the following link worked for me on two different desktops:

http://www.tuxradar.com/answers/655#null
reddot

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by reddot »

kyphi wrote:First, to change file permission:

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sudo chmod 644 ~/.dmrc
second, to change ownership of file:

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sudo chown <username> /home/<username>/.dmrc
third, to assign permission for home directory:

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sudo chmod 700 /home/<username>
Thanks kyphi, this worked in my case. My problem is i needed to move a backup of $home partition from another drive to my current installation and being inside the os did not allow me to copy all the contents. So i went into linux mint live usb, and moved the files into my /home partition. The problem with that is all the contents are now root ownership. When i logged in i couldnt do nothing even launch caja, since caja config is roots owner i had no right to write in it, so i could not launch caja. Even the panels were locked since i was not the owner, i cant launch any programs either. lucky for me i alway have a terminal shortcut in my panels or use the keyboard lol. I changed the ownership back to my username, and everthing was fine until i restarted. i still had a .dmrc error when logging in and it would take for ever to login. After i applied the above thanks to kyphi. i no longer get an error message and man my system is booting lightning fast again thanks.

by the way im running linux mint 17.2 mate
griffondude

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by griffondude »

chown does not always work properly on NTFS or FAT partitions. There is no solution that I am aware of except for copying the contents of the volume to a non-windows volume (permissions will be set for the current user upon copying).
reddot

Re: Message after login: $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored..

Post by reddot »

griffondude wrote:chown does not always work properly on NTFS or FAT partitions. There is no solution that I am aware of except for copying the contents of the volume to a non-windows volume (permissions will be set for the current user upon copying).
~/.dmrc should be in /Home. should be a ext# type partition, or any other partition linux kernel supports.

it makes no sense to install linux in NTFS or yet alone FAT, i only have ext4 partitions in my systems.

why would you partition /home as NTFS or FAT16/32 :lol: :lol: :lol:
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