I have a problem, I try to add a user but when I do
this happens

Adding user `matt'...
Adding new group `matt' (1000).
Adding new user `matt' (1000) with group `matt'.
Creating home directory `/home/matt'.
chown 1000:1000 /home/matt: Operation not permitted
Cleaning up.
Removing directory `/home/matt'
Removing user `matt'.
Removing group `matt'.
groupdel: group matt does not exist

this is a huge problem the only user I have is root! if it matters /home is on a different partition then /, its a fat32 partition if that matters

Dear Mr. New,

If you're familiar with the command line, try:

# mkdir /home/matt
# useradd -d /home/matt -s /bin/bash matt
# chown matt:users /home/matt

Note: this does not create a matt group.

Good luck.

- Ben

It won't let me change ownership of /home/matt I was logged on as root, heres what It said-

changing ownership of `/home/matt': Operation not permitted

Bad news: it very much matters. The Fat32 filesystem does not support permissions. That means the attempt to change ownership and permissions will fail everytime. If you want to create a partition that is readable by both windows and linux, then I would suggest creating a partition, formating it as FAT32, and then mounting it somewhere such as /home/windows_share. If you're not trying to share a partition, then dump Fat32 like a hot potato.

You can work around this problem is you absolutely must, but it will be more pain than it's worth... trust me.

well, since I'm not really using that partition can I reformat and change it?

Sure. From the command line, execute these commands:

umount /home
mkfs.ext3 /dev/hd??
mount -t ext3 /dev/hd?? /home

Obviously, you'll need to replace hd?? with the apropriate drive and partition number for your /home partition. Then you can create the /home/matt directory and change permissions.

NOTE: you may also need to change your /etc/fstab. Open it up in a text editor, look for a line that looks like:
The key thing is the vfat. Change it to ext3 and save. If you're not sure, just post the whole contents of /etc/fstab and I'll help you make the necessary change.

I changed a few things I decided I'll keep it but change it to /home/windows for windows and linux to share I just put that in fstab created that directory and it worked

Dear Mr. New,

I apologize for not reading your initial post more thoroughly. I didn't see that FAT32 part

If you do decide to remove your FAT partition, I have one confused word of warning. I had problems with lilo when I tried removing windows; I don't know exactly why. Be very sure to have a debian boot disk availabe.

- Ben