cannot write to hardisk (extreme noob question)
 

Im new to linux and have an extremely noobish question, which i cannot find an answer too. Whenever i try to modify any of the hard drives contents (save, download, etc.) I cant do it. I believ its because I am not the owner. How do i change that (I know the root Password and everything , its my machine) Sorry for my extreme noobishness

If you're trying to write to NTFS then no go :)

Otherwise, chown will change owner and chmod will change permissions.

But really if a you as a user doesn't have permission to write somewhere you shouldnt' be writing there.

the problem is im the only user. Due to my extreme ignoance, I probably meesed up first time user setup somewhere. And its not letting me create new folders no anything.

You may be feeling the effects of a secure operating system. This is there for a reason so try not to destroy this principle. Only give yourself permissions to run what you need. If you need a directory to have total control of other than your /home/username dir then create one and change the permissions so you are the owner of this Dir. Only use the super user account when you need it. If a command needs to be run as root su - "command" it will then prompt you for a password and execute the command as root. If there are commands that you routinely need to run as root take a look at sudo. Many newbies find this difficult and then run everything as root. This is a bad idea. One reason this is a bad idea is it makes it extremely easy for you to delete your entire operating system. The second is you could be tricked into executing a command or script that compromises your system such as the latest fishing attempt. This irritates me because I then have to defend Linux as being a secure environment to all the doubters when in actuality it was just someones bad decision to run as superuser. Once you get used to it you will appreciate it. Good Luck.

man chown

i really like peacebwitchu 's answer to you, and I also feel that even though it could be frustrating at first and all your "windows" buddies will snicker at how "difficult" doing simple things are in linux....you truly are "feeling the effects of a secure operating system". Don't succumb to logging in using the root account as your default login account. Try to persevere with using a regular user account, and practice using the tools available such as using "su" to initiate running a command as root, or setting up proper file and directory permissions for your regular users.

good luck

i just figured out i have a home folder, so that clears everything up. I guess it is better that linux is secure.