Hi!

Just made one of those stupid misstakes. I installed KDE as root, so now, whenever I create a shortcut etc.. it is created with root only permission, which kind of anoys me.. I am not too familiar with how to use chmod/own, I can use it on files, but not on programs.

Please advice,

Sebastian Andersson

I am a bit confused.

Installing KDE as root is fine, and is perfectly normal (although not required). This is not something to worry about.

Perhaps you are running it as root? This is not so wise - you should log on as an ordinary user before logging into X, only use root when you really need to (like installing new software).

Programs are files too, there is no distinction. Everything in linux is represented as files, even your hardware. The chmod command works the same whether you apply it to text files, programs, or your sound card permissions.

Please make sure you log into X as a user, then see if you still get this problem that you were decribing. If you do then can you try to explain it in another way because I didn't really understand what you meant. Do you get an error message?

Thanks,
Mark.

thank you for your answer Mark,

I am loging on as a normal user, with normal privileges, but when I create for example a link to an application, it is set to root permission only, so I cannot change it.. I am usually running fluxbox, but thought of trying KDE, not giving up bcos of this, as it is not such a big problem, but still, beeing able to solve it would be great! MAybe KDE sets all links to root permission ?? well, anyways, is anyone has a tip please post!!

And I do not get any error messages when using a link created in KDE, eventhough permission is set to root.

Sebastian

That is strange, whenever I create a link on KDE it always becomes owned by me, as expected. I have never heard of this problem before. Are you able to delete the links? If so then you can workaround the problem, by deleting and recreating links instead of modifying them. Note that you do not need to own a file in order to delete it, you only need write permissions in the file's directory.

Regards,
Mark.

ok thanks Mark for your help, as it is not that much of a problem, I'll just let it be and continue on using it as it is.

Sebastian Andersson