How to allow non admin user accounts to access files created in other o/s.
 

I have installed Mint 10 on the family desktop to try it out for general family use. It is dual boot. Previous o/s is still there, along with all the files such as documents. (Am I allowed to say "Windows" here? I am not sure of the rules yet.)

I set up two accounts, one that I use with admin privileges. The other for the kids to use, without admin privileges. In the admin account I can access all documents created and in the other o/s. But in the kids account, we cannot see the documents at all. Is there any way to "share" the documents/files so the kids can retrieve their homework from the old o/s?

Thanks!

Hi,

Firstly: welcome, and yes, the "other os" can be mentioned, though (very) few use a capital w ;)...

Okay, the answer: yes. It is completely possible to allow access to a folder for other users.
In fact, THIS is where Linux shines! You need to set the access bits. Some background:
http://www.zzee.com/solutions/linux-permissions.shtml

You'll need to use the command chmod ... yes, that is a command...

This is what you'd need to do:

- place the folder somewhere in the Linux system, your folder would be best.
- open the Console, you land right into your folder
- invoke the cmod command

- enter the folder of the kids, typically /home/kids
- make a symlink

- give them read rights... same as above

Take care, +r sets the read rights, -r revokes them. the capital R means "recusively", that way they get to read what is inside the folder as well...

Links:
Chmod http://www.linuxmanpages.com/man1/chmod.1.php
Ln http://www.linuxmanpages.com/man1/ln.1.php

By the way, it's good (best) practice to set up a non-root account for yourself, because if
this is what I think it means, it means you're root...that's not safe.

How to find out?

Enter this in the console

and if the word "root" comes back...you're in root mode. It's wise to set up a non-root account right away, if that's the case.

Wellness!

Thor

Is the partition in VFAT, NTFS ...
How did you mount the Windows partition?
Do you mount it via
at boot?
If the filesystem is NTFS
It should look like
replace
with the correct name in your case
will give you the correct name
and
with the mountpoint you are using


Kind regards

@Thor_2.0

Why place the folder on the linuxsystem?
Then you need to copy them back to windows if you need them in Windows.
The OP wants to access the files on the windows partition.
Since he can access them as root, he should be able to access them as user also,
providing the partition is mounted correctly.

You also need to chown the folder to the actual user.
Using only
will still give
as owner

Kind regards

I suggested this because I was not too sure about OP's abilities...of course, your option is the better one, provided OP can accomplish this...

Let's w8-n-C :)

Thor

I'm reading this thread because I have installed the new 11.04 version of Ubuntu in one of my partitions, but I have files on sda1 which I had used with 10.04, that I want to access.

Some of the advice here is old school, considering newer versions such as Ubuntu do not actually set up the root account as a desktop account, so whoami does not return root. Root cannot be set up as a desktop user, although the root account does exist in the filesystem and the "users and groups".

However, in Ubuntu, the account set up when installing the o/s is also given administrator privileges, which are accessed with the same password as this user uses.

The secret is in creating a folder on your file system for the partition you want to mount, and then modifying the etc/fstab which lists the static files of a filesystem.

Gnome users with administrative rights can open the file manager with root privileges by opening a terminal and typing

sudo nautilus

at the prompt. They will be prompted for their password.

Then when they right-click and choose to edit etc/fstab , they will be able to save their edditing results back again.