[Lubuntu] Not able to access disks from Lubuntu CD

[Ari Torhamo]

2011/10/30 Avi Greenbury <lists at avi.co>

> Ari Torhamo wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > An upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 (and fresh installation too) from 10.10
> > failed, and I decided to try Lubuntu instead. When I try to access
> > the disks from the Lubuntu live-CD (to do some back-ups), I get an
> > error message "Not authorized" (this seems to be an eternal problem
> > in Linux). I tried "sudo chown...", but without success. I'd like to
> > know which command to use to be able to access the disks (hard drives
> > and USB stick). Thanks very much.
> >
>
> I guess you're trying to get at the disks from the old Ubuntu install
> that broke?
>
> Yes.


> The 'not authorised' bit would be because the livecd user you're logged
> in as on the live cd isn't the same user as you were on the installed
> system.
>
> That's what I guessed. I think it is terrible usability. One example: once
a friend of mine reinstalled Ubuntu, and wasn't able to access his external
hard disk afterwards, because he wasn't considered the owner of the disk
anymore. That was a very embarassing situation for me, as I was the one who
recommended Ubuntu for him as an easy to use operating system. My friend
shook his head when I told him that this is considered a feature, not a
bug. I have faced the same situation several times, and it's always
annoying, as there doesn't seem to be any simple, repeatable way to get out
of it.


> What was the chown command that you ran, and did it itself produce any
> errors?
>

No errors. The command was "sudo chown -R user:user /path/to/the/folder


> Generally, when you're taking backups, the solution to the
> access problem is to run the backup as root, rather than chown the
> files


Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try to remember it the next time (although
it doesn't sound something one should have to do on a user friendly
distro). Does this mean, that the backups that one has made with a regular
backup program are not usable when a reinstall is being done? In a wider
context, why not make the permissions settable (is that a word?) from the
file manager, as they already are in a crippled way (I know, it's a featrue
request (bug report) that doesn't help me now).


> - presumably you'd prefer to take the backup of the files
> preserving their permissions.
>  <https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users>


I don't quite follow. Doesn't this conflict with your suggestion to take
the backups as root? (Perhaps I don't understand, what "preserving their
permissions" mean or how do I do that).


Thanks for your help!

Ari
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