Actually I copied some files to my home partition my backup dvd (did it as root) and realized i need to change the permission and ownership on those copied files.
I used the following command

chown -R -v --from root:root username:username /home/username/common

common is the folder where i copied all my files.

What happened after that beats me since icons on my fedora core 2 (gnome) desktop shows trash, computer, user's home with a readonly symbol over the icon. I dont know how to change back the permission.

Does anyone know how to revert back to original settings?

Thanks,
Tux

swich to kde if you can or xfce