Travis wrote:
How do I know if I have "write access"?
Well, let's start with a directory that you should NOT have write access
to, like /usr/lib. To test that,
cd /usr
ls -ld lib
When I do that on my system, I get this:
drwxr-xr-x 266 root root 90112 2008-12-05 10:51 lib
The "root root" means it is owned by root and also has group ownership
of root (and you as a regular user should not have root group
privilege). The initial "d" means it is a directory. Now look at the part:
rwxr-xr-x
The first "rwx" means the owner, namely root, has read, write, and
search access. The following "r-x" means that those with access to the
root group have read and search access but not write access (dash
instead of w). The final "r-x" means that everyone else (which means
YOU) have read and search access but not write access. So you do not
have write access. Now lets check out your Desktop directory.
cd
ls -ld Desktop
(cd with no additional arguments take you to your home directory).
When I do that I see this:
drwxr-xr-x 2 david rcubed 4096 2008-11-30 14:37 Desktop
The "david rcubed" means it is owned by david (that's me) and has group
ownership of rcubed. Again, the first "rwx" means the owner has read,
write, and search access. Since I am the owner, I have write access.
You can also do all this using your desktop file manager. For example,
I'm running XFCE but it would be similar for GNOME or KDE. I see an icon
on my desktop named "Home". I double-click that and I get a file manager
window for my home directory. In GNOME, I think you can do the same
thing using the "Places" menu. In the window for my home directory, I
see Desktop (a "folder", which is just another name for a directory). I
select that, right mouse, and choose "Properties" as you might do in
Windows. Now I click on the "Permissions" tab and see that I have read
and write access. It should be telling me that I have search access
also, but for some reason it doesn't mention that (bad XFCE). Under
"Others" it says "Read only".
But I'm an old-timer and prefer to use the command line for this sort of
thing.
Hope that helps.
-- David
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