2 Linux based questions (amsn and music related)

Ok after successfuly installing debian though following the hexus opensource article, i have finally come across a couple of problems.


1) During setup i made a /mnt/music folder and loaded the partition into that file. Now when im in gnome and try to access any sub folder within the /music folder i get the following message:

Couldn't display "mnt/Music/(folder name here"

The attempt to log in failed.

Is this because im not root either? Ive noticed that the permissions for the /muisc directory have all the ticks selected except the write box in anything other than root (if that make sence).

2) I recon but im not sure, that if i could some how log into gnome under root i could sort some things out, but i dont know how. Can ne one help me please:)

Open a terminal/console and type 'SU' This lets you login as root to fiddle with the dir.

But you don't really want to be logged on as root for any reason usually.

Is that a sly partition for mp3's that is shared between windows and linux ? I didn't do this because if you use ntfs file system linux writing support is NOT recommended as it might goober the whole thing up at the moment. Reading is fine though.

If you used a fat based file system I think read/write is fine though !
*considers re-format. To reclaim wasted life. Erm. space*

gdm won't allow you to log in as root, as it's highly insecure. the better bet is to log in as a regular user, open a console, and type "su" to swtitch to root within the context of that console. any gui apps you run in that console will be run as root.

you can use "ls -l" in a console in the mnt folder (i.e. "cd /mnt" "ls -l" to see the permissions of the mounted folder. if they aren't as you want them, then you can apply some modifications to the mounting by adding "-o" options to the mount command. for example, if you've been using "mount //pc/stuff /mnt/music", you could use "mount //pc/stuff /mnt/music -o fmask=666,dmask=777" to make all files in the mount world readable & writeable, and all directories readable, writeable and enterable. or "-o credentials=/home/directhex/.smbpass" to log into the network share using the username & password supplied in that file.

full options for network share mounts are in "man smbmount", for ntfs partitions try "man mount"

Thanks for your replies so far. Btw the filesystem is a standalone fat32 partition, no OS is installed or has been installed to it (im using a pure linux system). Theres just music on there.:) Directhex... i typed :

mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/music -o fmask=666,dmask=777

along with:

mount /mnt/music -o fmask=666,dmask=777 since the top one didnt work but this method didnt work either. I still cant access the partition. Keeps saying permission denied.

You HAVE to be root to do that. Have you done the "su" part.

Type "su root" and then type the password at the prompt. Is the hard disk and partition correct ? IF you can get it successfully mounted then root will definately have access to the partition. So just 'cd' to the dir and try 'ls'.

If this works we can delve a bit further into the perms with some more data. i.e. a copy of the 'ls -l /mnt/*' <- whatever dir the mount is.

Good luck !

Yeh i was root:) I think i know whats happening...my ignorance it is lol I typed what Directhex said but then i tried to access the partition through the KDE interface and not the command line. I'll go and see what i can do....

no, my bad. nobody uses fat32 these days, didn't cross my mind :)

use "-o umask=000" on fat32, to get a world read-write-executeable folder.

if you want to know (if not stop reading), it's octal maths - 4 means read, 2 means write, 1 means execute, in order of user who owns the file, user group, and everyone on the machine - e.g. 412 means "user can read but nothign else, user's group can run but not read or write, all users can overwrite but not read". in the example i gave (which is for network shares, smbfs) fmask=777 means "all files should be 777". umask is in reverse, it says "subtract this umask from 777 and set thigs to the total", e.g. umask=365 gives the overall 412 permission from earlier.

no i don't know why umask & dmask/fmask are in reverse.

its like big/little endians m8...

[edit]

Additionally the fat partition is a good idea if you are going to dual boot with windows. Because you could rip/download mp3's and store them in a single writable partition. Like I said b4 I was advised to not trust the writing to ntfs partitions at the moment. It can apparently be bad for the file system. Reading is fine though.

Thanks alot guys (i presume you r:P). Ur method works now directhex :D. Landed with that. lol. Ive heard about linux and ntfs not playing well together two, so when i made the partition i knew id be moveing over to linux some day (had it all worked out;)) so i just made it fat32 then. Once again thanks for your huge help :)

part 3 covers the file /etc/fstab, which defines things to mount up (optionally, at boot) so you can just say "mount /mnt/music" or just allow mounting at boot. that & things like 3d drivers, 2.6 kernel, ALSA sound server, and games.

i'm sure you can mail hexus management & demand the next part of the article if you're impatient.

Already edited /etc/fstab.:) Im trying to get my Audigy card working right now with digital output. At first i didnt have any sound, but then i realised that linux was directing all the sound to my onboard soundcard. All of a sudden i had muffled sound, none the less its sound:P. I should have turned it off in the BIOS before installing debian. The pci sound card would have had a better chance of being the default device.