~/.matplotlib owned by root makes life with Python difficult

[Nils Kassube]

Doug wrote:
> I may be all wet, but I'm taking a class on Linux/Unix, and I
> understand that a
> symbolic link (ln -s filename   or  /directory name) will set the new
> permissions to
> 777.  So if you were to go to root, and make a symbolic link from the
> directory to wherever it is you want it, it should be
> read/write/executable from the new non-root directory.  If I'm all
> wet, somebody let me know.

If you make a symbolic link, that link is owned by root with permissions 
777. But that isn't really important. If you want to access the file 
where your link points to, the permissions of that file count. Try this:

touch this_is_a_test
sudo ln -s this_is_a_test testing_symlinks
ls -l this_is_a_test testing_symlinks
ls -lL this_is_a_test testing_symlinks
echo 1 >>this_is_a_test
echo 1 >>testing_symlinks
ls -l this_is_a_test testing_symlinks
ls -lL this_is_a_test testing_symlinks

As you are "taking a class on Linux/Unix", I leave the detailed 
explanation of the commands and the results as an exercise to you.


Nils