I was wondering..

What happens when file permissions are dr--r--r--
Because that means that no one can delete/edit/execute any files in that whole directory at all

I'm a linux newbie and still learning
And i'm a little frustrated because i can't delete this directory. Can anyone tell me how?
Please don't tell me this folder/files are stuck on my computer forever =(


This is what happened.. If it even matters:
I wanted to install java for my browser (Firefox) so I went to java.com
Downloaded jre-1_5_0_02-linux-i586.bin and followed the install directions
Seemed like everything went fine so i restarted my browser and tested it but java applets still didn't work.

So i decided to try installing the RPM package this time, maybe it would work
So i went back to java.com, and while i was downloading jre-1_5_0_02-linux-i586-rpm.bin
I tried deleting the directory where i had installed java the first time
but "Access Denied"

I tried "chmod a+rwx" but got changing permissions of (file-name): Not permitted

You can't just "rm" a directory.

Also, regarding the permissions which are this abbbcccddd

a = identifier ( directory, link, device, etc )
b = Owner Bits
c = Group Bits
d = World Bits

For now, your basic bits are rwx ( read, write, execute ), where each letter has a value that can be associated to it. r = 4, w = 2, x = 1. To get the appropriate r, w, or x value on the file, add the numbers up. So, if you want something that has r and x permissions, that would be a total of 5, so you could do something like chmod 755 filename.sh Where 7 is all of the bits added up, so when you do an ls -l you'll see this ( or it's equivalent ):

-rwxr-xr-x filename.sh

Ok, now that we've passed through chmod and permissions on files, let's get to your question.

You can't "rm" a directory, you can with extra options, you'll find these extra options by type rm --help, for more support type, man rm. If that directory is empty you could just issue the command rmdir and that will delete it, however, that's usually more of a pain than it's worth, look in to rm more.

Likewise, so long as you own the directory, it doesn't matter what the permissions are on it, your command will override the permissions.

[cane@localhost java]$ rm -f CHANGES
rm: cannot remove `CHANGES': Permission denied
[cane@localhost java]$

I don't get it?

I can't delete any files in the java directory with the command "RM"
And i can't right click & delete them
So how do I do it?

Well, I stated that you have to own the directory in order to do it. Do you own the directory? ls -l | grep CHANGES

My guess would be you don't, so make sure you're root when you do it.

I logged in as root and i can delete the files now with "rm (file-name)"
But it's taking forever deleting each individual file

How do i delete directories, with files inside?

rm -rf CHANGE/

Thanks!