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Things you should know:
I chmod'ed /
I'm running ubuntu 12.04
I have a live CD of Lubuntu 10.04
I don't have a root account set up.
Quote:
Since you have chmod'ed the whole system, as it seems (in which directory have you done that?) it may also be possible that a clean re-install is the easiest and fastest solution for you.
Well...that I could do, and I suppose that would solve my problem. But I'd like to leave that option for last.
Anything else I could do? I have a live CD, but I don't know what I need to do once I've booted...
Last edited by van_Zeller; 11-08-2012 at 08:43 AM.
Reason: more info
There really is no way of fixing this, or if there is a way, it will require a lot more work than to reinstall. I just did a similar thing, after spending 3 days installing Slackware and struggle to get it how I liked it. I did 'chown -R root:root /usr'. I also didn't want to reinstall, after all work I had already done to my system, but finally I realized it was actually the easiest and fastest way to fix it. I was thinking about reinstalling every single package I had installed on my system, but I realized it would require more work than to simply reinstall.
Edit: After a second thought, you 777'ed your /home also. I guess you better don't back it up, just reinstall...
I don't understand this, changing ownership of the entire volume contents is something I do often, accidentally of course. It's a bit like locking yourself out of the house, you just need the right key to get back in
I came here looking for help, but was not willing to wipe and reinstall so fixed this issue myself, maybe this varies with distro's but for me it's an easy fix.
Boot to a live distro (other booted system in my case), assume root privileges " sudo su " and then " chown OWNER:GROUP -R sdx/ "
I don't understand this, changing ownership of the entire volume contents is something I do often, accidentally of course. It's a bit like locking yourself out of the house, you just need the right key to get back in
I came here looking for help, but was not willing to wipe and reinstall so fixed this issue myself, maybe this varies with distro's but for me it's an easy fix.
Boot to a live distro (other booted system in my case), assume root privileges " sudo su " and then " chown OWNER:GROUP -R sdx/ "
The problem discussed here is not how to change owner recursively on a directory, but how to fix the system after you have done it on the wrong directory... There is NOT one single owner (root) for all system files. There are other, non-login users, and different groups that should own different files, and if the ownership on those files are wrong, it doesn't work. So the problem is not how to change owner, but how to find out who should be the owner of which file - in the entire system, if you do this on / ...
You make a very good point sir, thanks for clearing that up. I should have been more clear, it's more dependent on the type of install (like frugal as in my case) rather than the distro itself.
There really is no way of fixing this, or if there is a way, it will require a lot more work than to reinstall. I just did a similar thing, after spending 3 days installing Slackware and struggle to get it how I liked it. I did 'chown -R root:root /usr'. I also didn't want to reinstall, after all work I had already done to my system, but finally I realized it was actually the easiest and fastest way to fix it. I was thinking about reinstalling every single package I had installed on my system, but I realized it would require more work than to simply reinstall.
Edit: After a second thought, you 777'ed your /home also. I guess you better don't back it up, just reinstall...
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