Permissions problem in Jaunty.

[Nils Kassube]

Steven Vollom wrote:
> I have a 500gb SATA HDD in my computer.  When I open Dolphin, on the
> left column of contents are two entries called Volume (ext3).  Both
> are identified exactly the same, however one is a partition on the
> HDD and the other is a different partition on the same drive.  The
> first in line is over 200gb in size, and I cannot use it because of a
> message that says, "Could not enter folder /media /disk/lost+found." 
> Additionally it would be nice to have each of them have a separate
> identity,  Used to be sda1, sda2, etc.  What is accomplished by
> identifying them both as Volume (ext3)?

It seems the volumes are only identified by their label and if they have 
no label they show the file system type. I would suggest you give your 
partitions labels as it is explained here:
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RenameUSBDrive>

> I would like to know what is in the lost+found folder,

The lost+found folder is a system directory used by the fsck program 
during file system checks. If fsck finds inodes which are not 
referenced by any directory entries it creates entries for them to the 
lost+found folder. Actually I'm not sure if this is exactly how it 
works but it should be good enough to understand what lost+found is 
good for.

> but more 
> importantly, I would like to put data in the partition.  I tried to
> create a folder in the partition to put things in it, but the option
> to create a folder is not available either; it is grayed out in the
> File menu.  If possible I would like to learn how to make everything
> on my computer available to me, without any permissions problems for
> anything.  Perhaps it is one of the freedom issues that are tied to
> Linux users, but for me, it is annoying to have to give myself
> permission to do anything.  Can someone please help me get this
> straightened out?

Steven, IIRC we have helped you with this issue several times with your 
previous machine. Please read the previous discussions on this list in 
the archive at <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-users/>. I 
remember you didn't like my solution, therefore I won't repeat it here.

> I wonder how difficult it would be to create two OS's and make them
> available to each of us by choice.  One could contain an OS where
> someone else makes our decisions about our own property, the other
> could be one could be made so the owner is responsible for his own
> actions.  I bet if that one were put to a vote, the choice would be
> 0% for someone else making your decisions for you, and 100% in favor
> of freedom.

If you want to decide everything without someone else making any 
decisions for you, you would have to write your own OS. Otherwise 
someone else has already made decisions like how to name or start 
programs.

OK, I know you were talking about your disk partitions. You are still 
responsible for what you do with the partitions. It is just a design of 
Linux that a file system is owned by root and root has to give 
individual users permission to use the file system. However on your 
machine you are the admin and can give yourself the permission. If you 
want total freedom for each user on your machine to do with the file 
system whatever he pleases, we are back in the time of CP/M or DOS. I 
don't think many users would vote for those systems.


Nils