Cant Get Permission to write to foulder
 

I cant get the permission to write to folders on my file system. when ever i try to write to the file system i get this massage: You do not have permissions to write to this folder. When i write click on the foulder the permission buttions are blocked, my os is Ubuntu, please help! :(

I'm assuming your regular user doesn't have permission to write to these files.

What files are you trying to edit?

Most likely, you need to be root to edit these files. Most WMs have an option such as "run as different user" or somesuch in the shortcut; trying to edit those files as root will be much more successful.

OK--on Ubuntu, the default is no root user.

Go into a terminal and type "ls" to see what's there. "cd" to directories until you get to a file of interest. then "ls -l" to see the permissions and ownership. If you are not the owner, you cannot change permissions without becoming root or using "sudo"

Here is an edited example:

mherring@Ath:/boot$ ls -l
total 7664
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 239811 2005-11-18 05:29 abi-2.6.12-10-386
mherring@Ath:/boot$ chmod 777 abi*
chmod: changing permissions of `abi-2.6.12-10-386': Operation not permitted
mherring@Ath:/boot$ sudo chmod 777 abi*
Password:
mherring@Ath:/boot$ ls -l
total 7664
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 239811 2005-11-18 05:29 abi-2.6.12-10-386

Note that the password requested is NOT the root password, but your own user passwd. sudo simply exercises your built-in root priveleges one command at a time.

Once you get used to doing things like this at the command line, you'll never bother with the GUI.

I THINK you can take on these powers by opening Nautilus from the terminal with "sudo nautilus"

Thanks for the advice i will try those commands out when i get home. i have made a root account and i do not have a problem coping files or writeing them through the terminal, but some times i need to use the file browers to copy and edit files and this is where i am haveing my problem i need to get root permission through the filebrowser.