Permissions problem?

[eap]

I have two problems, they may be related. I only have these problems as a non-root user. The problems I'm having are 1) I do not have permissions to create/modify files on the Desktop and 2) certain commands are not usable unless you are specifially logged in as root.

For the first problem I was thinking since I had created a separate partition for /home that I would have to give myself permission by modifying /etc/fstab. It didn't work. Any ideas?

The second one I find more bizarre. I can't run commands such as iwconfig, or shutdown. I get a "command not found". It's kinda annoying when I have to log out and log in as root just to properly shutdown my computer.

---
Update:

Checked again and it seems I can write files onto /home/nameOfUser but not /home/nameOfUser/Desktop. I guess I do have permissions to modify on that partition, just not on the Desktop. Still haven't fixed it yet.

[Freston]

Commands such as shutdown and ifconfig are located in /sbin, which is by default not in a users path, but it is in the path of root. That is because the executables that affect the system are in /sbin, and regular users shouldn't run these.
You can change this, as I did, by putting /sbin in your users path. You will then get a 'permission denied' rather than a 'command not found', which I prefer. Edit (as root) your /etc/profile or (as user) ~/.bashrc

But you don't really have to log out/log in as root to run these commands, you can `su` to root, do your thing and `exit` back to being user.


You can check permissions on files and directories with `ls -l`, you shouldn't have to change fstab to set permissions on your home dir. You can change permissions with `chmod` and you can change ownership with `chown`. Read the man pages for details.

When you use `chmod`, this list can come in handy:

0=no permission
1=x
2=w
3=wx
4=r
5=rx
6=rw
7=rwx

Changing a permission on your Desktop dir would look like this;

chmod 700 ~/Desktop

Also, I don't want to sound like I am RTFM'ing you, but the Slackbook has lots of good info and tips.

[kea]

...and don't forget to see if you are the owner of your Desktop directory.

cd
ls -ld Desktop

and see the owner's username in the third column.

Üdvrivalgással:
KEA.

[chigurh]

I've always written it chmod 0xxx file
mainly because since I've been reading about it almost everything I can think of that I've read has used it this way in examples or instructions. Just a habit.
1xxx is sticky bit, which I hadn't used personally until I was tinkering with Linux From Scratch. I didn't finish it, but I had no problems up until the time I quit ... I was gonna hold off for a while ...

Also, according to the Filesystem Hierachy Standard 2.3:

/sbin : System binaries
Purpose

Utilities used for system administration (and other root-only commands) are stored in /sbin, /usr/sbin, and /usr/local/sbin. /sbin contains binaries essential for booting, restoring, recovering, and/or repairing the system in addition to the binaries in /bin. Programs executed after /usr is known to be mounted (when there are no problems) are generally placed into /usr/sbin. Locally-installed system administration programs should be placed into /usr/local/sbin.