~/ or newbie profile question

Hi,
Using SuSE 10.0 Gnome Desktop
two users:
root
mrdoe (set to automatically boot)

I'm new to Linux. please bare with me, the problems are multiple but, I think, resolves to 2 questions:

1) Where does SuSE 10.0 store user preferences
1) a) What does '~/' resolve to?
2) Why does my root user not have all permissions
2) a) Who does have all permissions?

Ok, I snuck in a couple extra questions.

Problems:

1) Banshee
-> mrdoe user - changed the engine to use gstreamer instead of Helix
result: banshee won't start
login to root, banshee starts, with Helix (which is default)
syn: user profiles differ
recover: Use YaST to delete and reinstall banshee
result: no change
syn: YaST did not delete user profiles

2) Dual boot mount
-> Dual booting Windows XP and SuSE
-> Used new hard drive for SuSE and shared FAT32 drive
-> Let SuSE partition and format the drive during install
-> Mounted shared drive to /local
result: drive 'windows' is owned by root
root does not have permissions to set r/w/e properties on this mount
?: Why doesn't root have rights to set properties on this drive, it owns it?

3) Thunderbird
-> Attempting to share profile between Windows and Linux
result:
In Windows:
Moving profile to shared folder worked fine
In SuSE:
a) Using nautlius, can't find the profiles.ini file to modify to point to shared folder
b ) logged into root: in terminal, try to open ~/.thunderbird/profiles.ini errors with permission denied
?: Where does ~/.thunderbird/profiles.ini point to? It obviously is an existing file.
Why doesn't root have rights to modify it?

Sorry for the point form description, too many questions, trials, results to describe in another format.

Thanks

OK firstly I can't answer everything but I'll answer what I can

Originally posted by moog69@Oct 20 2005, 07:50 AM
Hi,
Using SuSE 10.0 Gnome Desktop
two users:
root
mrdoe (set to automatically boot)

I'm new to Linux. please bare with me, the problems are multiple but, I think, resolves to 2 questions:

1) Where does SuSE 10.0 store user preferences usually its /home/username except for root which his /root
* 1) a) What does '~/' resolve to? the home folder of the logged in user (same path as above)
2) Why does my root user not have all permissions Root is the Superuser of your system and should have the power to do everything, but please give an example of something you can not do as root
* 2) a) Who does have all permissions? See above

Ok, I snuck in a couple extra questions.

Problems:

1) Banshee
-> mrdoe user - changed the engine to use gstreamer instead of Helix
* result: banshee won't start
* * * * * * login to root, banshee starts, with Helix (which is default)
* syn: user profiles differ
* recover: Use YaST to delete and reinstall banshee
* * * result: no change
* * * syn: YaST did not delete user profiles* Can't help on this one sorry

2) Dual boot mount
-> Dual booting Windows XP and SuSE
-> Used new hard drive for SuSE and shared FAT32 drive
-> Let SuSE partition and format the drive during install
-> Mounted shared drive to /local
* result: drive 'windows' is owned by root
* * * * * * root does not have permissions to set r/w/e properties on this mount
* ?: Why doesn't root have rights to set properties on this drive, it owns it?Is windows on the FAT32 drive. Root can not change permissions on a NTFS drive

3) Thunderbird
-> Attempting to share profile between Windows and Linux
* result:
In Windows:
Moving profile to shared folder worked fine
In SuSE:
a) Using nautlius, can't find the profiles.ini file to modify to point to shared folder
* * * * * * * * * * * * * b ) logged into root: in terminal, try to open ~/.thunderbird/profiles.ini errors with permission denied
* ?: Where does ~/.thunderbird/profiles.ini point to? It obviously is an existing file.
* * * Why doesn't root have rights to modify it? not to sure on this one but you can get a permission denied if you try to access a file that doesn't exit or try to access it an incorrect method (for eg: typing ./file.run will give a permission denied when trying to execute a .run file)

Sorry for the point form description, too many questions, trials, results to describe in another format.

Thanks

[snapback]96315[/snapback]

Originally posted by Gonesolo@Oct 20 2005, 04:37 AM
OK firstly I can't answer everything but I'll answer what I can

[snapback]96336[/snapback]

Thanks for the useful info.
I think I figured out the root permissions problem by setting "Show Hidden Files" in nautilous, I don't know how to do that in terminal or why it isn't on by defualt for the root login, or even how to set it as default for root, since everytime I login I have to set it again, but, at least I was able to find and edit my Thunderbird profiles.ini to share the profile with my Windows login on the shared fat32 drive.

Unfortunately, it only works for root because I still can't find a way to configure fstab to mount the drive in rw for my normal login user. I must say, the help for SuSE is not complete, it talks alot about bash commands but nothing about basic system configuration like permissions on folders, that's about as basic as it gets, and I can't seem to find any useful information on that.

my fstab entry is:
/dev/hdb3 /shared vfat rw,suid,dev,exec,auto,nouser,async 0 0

but the default user login cannot write to this drive.

Thanks

Changing

/dev/hdb3 /shared vfat rw,suid,dev,exec,auto,nouser,async 0 0

to

/dev/hdb3 /shared vfat rw,suid,dev,exec,auto,user,async 0 0

shold sort the problem out. You need to be logged in as root to edit the file. I hope it works

Blessings,
David

Originally posted by bunced@Oct 20 2005, 11:20 PM
Changing

/dev/hdb3 /shared vfat rw,suid,dev,exec,auto,nouser,async 0 0

to

/dev/hdb3 /shared vfat rw,suid,dev,exec,auto,user,async 0 0

Thanks, but that didn't work, from what I got out the docs, I think that entry only refers to mounting. I have continued this question in:
http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=16836
because that thread is more specific to the question.

Thanks again.