Editing file permissions from GUI?

vdogvictor · 2008-10-08 04:54:56

I just realized one of the reasons that I would get annoyed with Linux years ago and stopped using it for a few years. I've been using arch for a few weeks, and love it for the most part so far. But one thing still irks me and I hope there is a solution.

VERY frequently I run into file/folder permission problems. I know I can fix this from the shell as root, and sometimes do, but sometimes I can't get it to work right. Is there any GUI file manager that will log you in as root or through sudo temporarily to perform a restricted action? I'm using KDEmod.

Ghost1227 · 2008-10-08 05:41:26

If you have gksu or kdesu installed, create a shortcut to 'gksudo dolphin' or 'kdesudo dolphin' or whatever your file manager of choice is. gksu and kdesu are graphical frontends for the su/sudo commands which will allow you to run GUI programs as root.

scrllock · 2008-10-08 17:36:35

If you're having these problems too frequently, you might just be working in the wrong directories. You shouldn't need to move a lot of stuff around that isn't in your home directory (where your permissions should be fine), and for editing config files that require root permission you might be better off simply running an editor with sudo and then opening the file you need. Doing a lot of large-scale filesystem operations as root usually isn't a terribly good idea, unless you really, really know what you're doing.

Mashi · 2008-10-08 18:59:07

I remember it being that way for me as well, other times that I have tried linux, but lately I have not had any issues. It's pretty simple:

users can read but not write outside of their home dir (makes sense)
users can't read /root (makes sense)
root can read/write anywhere (makes sense)

Like the poster above me said, if you're having issues you might be in the wrong folders, or perhaps if you have mounted extra drives then you need to set up their permissions properly.

vdogvictor · 2008-10-09 00:28:25

Thanks for the suggestions Ghost, and the feedback from everyone. I usually run into these problems with my shared FAT partition with windows and mounting USB flash disks, but it really does cause me a hassle, sometimes I never can figure out the right chmod command. Even doing chmod 777 with the recursive option doesn't seem to work sometimes. Drives me nuts :-P

I think a few years ago I still used the windows mind set of making a folder like /School or something and it would cause all sorts of problems, now of course I just us /home/victor/school.

And I do use the command line for config files and pacman and the like, it's just annoying to have to go to the command line to copy a file to a USB drive or my windows partition, even when I mount the drive in a place like /home/victor/usbdrive it still doesn't work right.

Last edited by vdogvictor (2008-10-09 00:52:51)

Tenken · 2008-10-09 00:45:26

If you add your normal user to the storage group you won't have to use the command line to manage files on your USB drive.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-10-08 04:54:56

Editing file permissions from GUI?

#2 2008-10-08 05:41:26

Re: Editing file permissions from GUI?

#3 2008-10-08 17:36:35

Re: Editing file permissions from GUI?

#4 2008-10-08 18:59:07

Re: Editing file permissions from GUI?

#5 2008-10-09 00:28:25

Re: Editing file permissions from GUI?

#6 2008-10-09 00:45:26

Re: Editing file permissions from GUI?

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