Permissions

[Harrison Conlin]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Geoffrey <gcombes4 at bigpond.com> wrote:
> I recently purchased an "Open USB IO Board" for experimental work.
> The software for it can be run using a Live DVD which came with the
> purchase or directly from within Ubuntu, the latter being preferable I
> think because it saves me boot switching. Below is an extract from the
> Quick Start instruction from the reference manual:
>
> Open USB-IO Board: Extract from "Quick Start"
> • Go to www.pjradcliffe.wordpress.com and download the appropriate ousb
> binary. If the Live-DVD of development tools is being used then the ousb
> binary and much more is already installed. For Windows select ousb.exe
> file and place it in a convenient directory, ideally in the path. For
> Linux obtain the ousb binary and place it in /usr/local/bin, you may
> need root permissions to achieve this. If you cannot be root, then use
> any convenient directory, ensuring the file has execute privileges set.
> • Open a terminal and try running the program with no parameters to see
> help information. Under Windows select Start->Run, type cmd in the text
> box then hit enter. If the ousb.exe program is not in the current path
> then use the cd command to move to the directory that contains ousb.exe.
> Under Linux start a terminal and type ousb. If the binary was not placed
> in the path again use cd to move to the right directory and type ./ousb
> then enter.
> If ousb under Linux gives an error message about missing libraries then
> go back to the web site and obtain ousb_static (much larger but includes
> the libraries) and try again. Some Linux distributions protect USB
> access and so try using a root terminal.
>
> I tried putting ousb.exe in /usr/local/bin (an empty folder) but was
> denied because this need Permission. Of course I can use an accessible
> "convenient directory" as mentioned above. However I am curious to know
> about Permisssions. Please advise.
> Geoffrey Combes

Since the file ends in exe it sounds like you downloaded the windows version.

The folder /usr/local/bin is owned by root and normal users don't have
write privileges.
harrisony at devenv1:~$ ls -l /usr/local
total 32
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 2009-10-29 07:55 bin

Your best option would be to use copy the file in there as root (use sudo)
If your curious to learn more about file permissions in general check
out https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FilePermissions


-- 
Harrison Conlin