Helpful Hints...

[danvds3]

I've decided to randomly pop hints on here every now an then (Not fixed date/time). If you have basic questions like internet, installing apps, GUI etc, i'll help you out and try to come across clearly!

Ok, well here's my first Random hint:

1. When installing a .RPM file, make sure it is not .i386.rpm or your movie player will try to open it! - if so, rename it and remove the .i386 bit

[danvds3]

2. To run an Installed program, open the terminal/konsole and type it's exact name. Alternatively open /usr/bin or /usr/lib and find the program there.

[danvds3]

3. If when running a file from the terminal/konsole, you get a message saying 'Permission Denied', or similar depending on your distro, simply type 'su' or 'sudo -s' depending on your distro and type the root password, then type 'cd' followed by the directory location of your file. Then type 'chmod a+x <filename here> or you can skip the 'cd' bit and just type this: chmod a+x <file location and name here>

For example:

root@Desktop: chmod a+x /home/daniel/documents/randomfile.so

OR

root@documents: chmod a+x randomfile.so

The 'chmod a+x' command just gives users full access to that particular file.

[unchiujar]

3. If when running a file from the terminal/konsole, you get a message saying 'Permission Denied', or similar depending on your distro, simply type 'su' or 'sudo -s' depending on your distro and type the root password, then type 'cd' followed by the directory location of your file. Then type 'chmod a+x <filename here> or you can skip the 'cd' bit and just type this: chmod a+x <file location and name here>

For example:

root@Desktop: chmod a+x /home/daniel/documents/randomfile.so

OR

root@documents: chmod a+x randomfile.so

The 'chmod a+x' command just gives users full access to that particular file.

You should also explain why this might be dangerous. File permissions are there for a reason.

[danvds3]

Yes, well first of all people can see that it is for that particular file.
Secondly it generally isn't dangerous, It is used for files like installers run from a text file.

I appreciate the feedback though.

Obviously, you wouldn't go and do something stupid like unlocking every file you can. Most files you need to unlock are manually done by you, linux is more manual than automatic, which is why it is less prone to bugs and viruses.

[Thrillhouse]

3.If when running a file from the terminal/konsole, you get a message saying 'Permission Denied', or similar depending on your distro, simply type 'su' or 'sudo -s' depending on your distro and type the root password

Not entirely true, implementing sudo means giving regular users "super user" permissions. That means when someone uses the sudo command, they should type in their own password and not the password of root.

1. When installing a .RPM file, make sure it is not .i386.rpm or your movie player will try to open it! - if so, rename it and remove the .i386 bit

This also happens only under certain circumstances. Sometimes, the mplayer-plugin will think that an rpm file is a real-player video and try to open it in the browser but you can easily avoid that by right-clicking on the file and clicking "Save Link as". Then you can install the rpm from wherever you downloaded it through the terminal.

[danvds3]

Well, yeah, first of all I'm not sure about sudo as I use mandriva so thanks for pointing that out.

Secondly, I'm aiming this a newbies who generally just run the file without the right click 'open with xxxxxx' command.

thankyou people for your input.

[david#1]

a .pdf file needs to be saved to floppy, when accessing file/save from within adobe reader error message - "not super-user" and file/save command fails, i know the super-user password and know how to log into super-user mode in terminal, my question is how to switch to super-user mode in the GNOME gui so as adobe will save the file to the floppy and recognize that i do indeed have the correct permissions to save a .pdf file to the floppy, adobe reader has a save file button on tools menu so i know it is possible even with reader not acrobat.
otherwise i do not know the file structure well enough to point a cp command to the floppy - shows up in computer as /media/floppy ... but this is apparently not the correct file structure for command line interface because this too fails or maybe i am using the incorrect syntax for the cp command --- cp resume march 2007.pdf /media/floppy?
david#1

[netstrider]

Open adobe reader as super user.
su
adobe /home/usr/file.pdf then save it. I'm not sure what the exact command is for opening adobe though
In my case where I don't use adobe as my reader but evince instead, simple because it comes pre-installed with my distro I'd use: evince /home/usr/file.pdf