permission

[u_kapaley256]

Hi i am new to this forum as well as to linux in general though i am able to do the basic work.......what's really bothering me is this permissions thing.I am using mandriva 2008 with kde.I have to open up konqueror with root permissions cos i dont have the write permissions.I even tried mounting the partitions in my home directory but the owner would still be root.I opened up k3b for burning dvd but no permissions so i opened up as root but it says it is not advisable.
Am i working the wrong way or can i make it work my way.........pls help.

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Post the contents of /etc/fstab file and output of fdisk -l command here.

su -
fdisk -l
cat /etc/fstab

[u_kapaley256]

hi devils_casper
thank you so much for replying.....due to my exmas i havent been able to give this much time.....but i have got into a new problem.........i had kept the system in autologin state but now whenever i boot the pc it asks for login and after entering the correct one the screen flickers for a second and then comes back to the same login screen.I think i visited the control centre(hope its called the same)but i dont remember doing any tampering..........
any help would again be appreciated........... thanks.

[devils casper]

Press Alt+Ctrl+F1 at Login Screen. It will drop you at Command Line Prompt. Log in and execute startx command.
Post error message here, if any.

[u_kapaley256]

hi.I appreciate all your prompt replies and would request u to please look at this........
i reloaded the os from the cd.....but meanwhile something happened.my windows dis management was suggesting that the disk capacity is 200gb(instead of the actual 120)and an unused partition so out of curiosity i formatted it and the bluescreen appeared.I cannot view the data in the partitions from mandriva as well.below is the output of fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x01340133

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2081 16715601 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 2082 2526 3574462+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2527 14592 96920145 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda4 2551 6374 30716248+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda5 ? 3083 75710 583370298 0 Empty
/dev/sda6 2551 6374 30716248+ 6 FAT16
/dev/sda7 6375 10198 30716248+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda8 10199 14592 35294773+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

and these are the contents of /etc/fstab

[root@localhost u_kapaley]# cat /etc/fstab
/dev/sda2 / ext3 noatime 1 1
/dev/sda6 /home/u_kapaley/drives/e vfat umask=0022,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/sda7 /home/u_kapaley/drives/f ntfs umask=0022,nls=utf8,ro 0 0
/dev/sda1 /home/u_kapaley/drives/win_c vfat umask=0022,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/sda4 /home/u_kapaley/drives/win_f vfat umask=0022,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto umask=0022,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0

[devils casper]

Is it the output of fdisk -l command before formatting partitions in Window's Disk Management Tool?
Is any of OS booting up now?

[u_kapaley256]

It was the output after formatting.......windows didnt boot up after that.....but i continued working with mandriva and downloaded my mail(for the first time....so all of it)and made this post and when i restarted x wouldnt start like the last time stating "not enough space left on device" and something else as well about deleting .x0-start or something like that......so i reloaded mandriva and the partitions are now visible..........havent worked on windows as yet.....havent got the disk at present.I wanted to download a video from youtube but i didnt have permissions........so i opened up konqueror as root and tried to change permissions for the partitions but it only results in a progress window which shows "stalled" and nothing happens.n one more thing.....shouldnt i download anything on the linux partition.......though i can add some software......my ext3 partition measures at 3.4 gb

[hongtao]

hi devils_casper
thank you so much for replying.....due to my exmas i havent been able to give this much time.....but i have got into a new problem.........i had kept the system in autologin state but now whenever i boot the pc it asks for login and after entering the correct one the screen flickers for a second and then comes back to the same login screen.I think i visited the control centre(hope its called the same)but i dont remember doing any tampering..........
any help would again be appreciated........... thanks.

auto login can be cancelled from system configuration center.
you can start kde as root, thought it is highly NOT recommanded. after booting, enter any of the six virtual terminals and login in as root, then type startx or kde or startkde.

[u_kapaley256]

Im afraid these permission problems sont stop bugging me.I recently downloaded a theme from kde-look but the tar.gz archive doesnt extract properly even thiough i am the owner of the file.i also cant make any changes to the permissions for that file.Any help would be appreciated....

[hongtao]

well, try to extract it again ... some of the packages from kde-look may not be working properly ...
if you want to change the permission, just use command chmod as root.
btw, what's the error message you got?