user # access?

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 14 May 2019 21:26:46 -0700 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> On Tue, 14 May 2019 23:20:39 -0400 (EDT)
> Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
> 
> > At Tue, 14 May 2019 19:37:23 -0700 "Ubuntu user technical support,
> > not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > Running Ubuntu 16.04 updated. I have a few disks from my older linux
> > > comps, even way back to Mandriva :-), and I'd like to check for some
> > > info on those disks. When I try to access them, I can't. Says owner
> > > is user# 501, etc and I don't have any permissions. Tried installing
> > > Nautilus-admin but that doesn't work either. How can I access my old
> > > disks via a GUI so I can easily see all and copy some if necessary?
> > > These will not be used to boot, so I don't mind altering those
> > > disks if necessary. All have different users/passwords/OS if that
> > > makes a difference.  
> > 
> > Well, you are not going to able to use a GUI out-of-the-box, unless
> > you login to the GUI as root -- not something that is normally
> > possible with an out-of-the-box install of Ubuntu (and is not
> > something that is recomended even on a Linux distro with a real root
> > login).
> > 
> > You are going to have do one of two things:
> > 
> > 1: Use a shell command like:
> > 
> > sudo chown -R <your user id or username> /path/to/old/disk/home
> > 
> > This will make the disk readable.
> 
> Sounds good. This sounds like a permanent change - easier if I need to
> do this again/periodically.
> 
> > OR
> > 
> > create additional usernames that have the sane UID as the files you
> > want to look at.
> 
> This sounds better - I have to access several disks. But, I need a few
> UIDs. Is there an easy way to change the UID for the same added user
> when I need to access multiple UIDs [for multiple users] on each
> old disk? If not, it may be easier to create 5-6 added users. BTW, does
> each added user have to have admin access to make this work via a GUI?

Each of the additional users does not need admin access to access *their* 
files.  Generally common *system* files are going to readable by everyone, and 
some config files will be readable and some will be protected, but it sounds 
like you probably don't need to mess with that sort of thing.

Generally, if these were systems where there was only one user (you) you 
probably won't need more than 2-3 of these users, since each distro will 
probably default to a partitular starting UID -- eg some will start with 500 
and some with 1000 or something.

> 
> Thanks much for the help!!
> 
> 
> > > 
> > > Tried a few I knew were from Mandriva - looks like they all use
> > > 500+. Not good - I used MD for quite a while and have several
> > > disks. :-(( Liked it a lot at the time, though.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > >   
> > 
> 
> 

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