I'm a dual booter.

I refreshed (re-installed) both systems recently after formattig the hard-drive with the intention of repartitioning it differently and figured I'd make one big shared FAT32 partition with the rest of the drive, where I'd keep all my documents and files, so I can access them from either system and I wouldn't have to worry about dividing the drive between the systems (as was my previous setup).

The problem is,
I mount the FAT partition (I have to be root for that) but them it won't let me change the permissions (still as root) so that I can access it from my user account. Which defeats the point of the partition's existence.

I did have a small shared FAT partition before formatting the drive, and it presented no such issues. In fact I didn't need to change any permissions to access it.

The only thing I did differently from the previous time is that I created the FAT partition with the partioner AFTER having installed both systems instead of during SUSE's installation. I did notice that the NTFS partition that was created before and mounted during SUSE installation has different permissions than the FAT I created and mounted afterwards...



Is there a way I can fix this without deleting SUSE and reinstalling it and creating all partitions during installation?

Is it normal that my swap partition "Type" is indicated as "AIX boot" and the / partition's "Type" is marked "Linux swap" ?

That's not how I remembered them from my previous installation. Maybe I should indeed go through the reinstall process. Again.

Hi,
If you want to access a mounted fat32 partition, you need to give the permissions during the mounting process. For instance, check the man mount for vfat options, such as umask. Add these options to the "arbitrary option value" field of YaST2's partitioner edit. Enabling "mountable by user" couldn't hurt unless there are security concerns. You won't have to become root to mount it anymore.

from http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/mount.8.html

Now your user account should be able to fully use this partition.

Now as far as your swap, its File System ID should be "0x82 Linux Swap" and its Type should be "Linux Swap"

The / partition's File System ID should be "0x83 Linux" and its Type should be "Linux Native", at least that's how it is on my system.

I don't recommend you change it manually. I would, as you say, re-install the system, and make sure the right setting are in place when you re-format the partitions.


Hope this helps,
Sam

So be it then. Re-installation it is. The system seems to work fine but I's rather be safe than sorry.

Let me know how it turns out.

Good Luck!
Sam

Ok. System is up. Formatted and re-created all concerned partitions. Now I can access them. I didn't open the partiotioner to check if the types are set right. I trust they are.

Thanks everyone!