(big sigh) I used to be OK with Ubuntu 15 yrs ago or so I ran 10.04Ubuntu LTS. I had everything runnig and got to the point where I could find, download, build, and install basic programs. I do not run Terminal well at all and really have trouble typing. I remember being able to copy and paste terminal lines directly in and running them. Things were quite easy. I ran 1004lts for YEARS until it just failed. I have now added a new HD and installed 18.04lts. The old HD and all the data is here as slave drive and automounted. Things do NOT behave the way I want them to. This 1804 thing is frustrating the heck out of me. I'll learn ... but ...

I want to be able to move rename delete copy paste etc EVERYTHING on my HD ALWAYS without EVER having to give myself permission. This includes all new files and all old files on the slave HD (the 10.04 drive). Drag and drop. I get it that I need to permiss installing programs, but As it stands right now I cannot just slide a song into a music folder. sorry but WTF???
How do I do this = permission to control all HD files? (Yes, even at risk of crashing stuff.)

Another issue I do not know how to resolve... a new thing is that CDs for music do not play without skipping using any program = videos, VLC, Rhythmbox. The data is not loading like it is supposed to, much too slow and incomplete. This showed up even more when a file I just plain copied as a WAV had flawed data (it played perfectly in my 2002 Ford Ranger!!!). [I deleted the bad file and tried to recopy it and move it into the folder but that was a fail also =permission=WHAT?]. How do I diagnose this? Is this related to the same thing that stops 18.04 from burning a music CD?

and to take this a little further... Rhythmbox. It used to be easy. Now the program won't even populate my music without crashing and then before it is even close to filling the list. I uninstalled and tried 3X. Now it is just gone. Bye bye Rhythmbox.

so basically you have a HD that your using as a sort of extra/backup ?

Another obvious approach less convenient is just to have an external hard-drive , which is really just like a huge usb stick then when your logged in , up and running as normal user you have permissions to all files just as you would as with a usb stick .My external is 500gig enough for me.


When you say give yourself permission are you talking about individual files or via where drive is mounted

eg /mnt/hd

you could do the whole lot maybe :

chown -R user:group /mnt/point

Otherwise its going to be probably (I don't use or know ubuntu)

its going to be about looking in /etc/fstab and editing so that you have auto user permissions

might i add , do you think its time to try a distro like Slackware

You probably need to change ugoa permissions. Your new user has a different ID than the old one(s). Using chown or chgrp can help do that. Requires sudo or root permissions.

Songs skipping, sounds like a device with slow I/O. OLD usb sticks were ones I've had that did that. Modern USB sticks are fast enough to not do that, with audio. When I had / used those OLD sticks, I just compressed the songs to flac or mp3 to make them smaller so they loaded better and played from the device without pauses. Alternatively make a local copy on the machine playing them and it's faster storage device.

At face value it appears that you have added a new hard drive to an old possibly 15 year old computer. Post its specifications including the amount of RAM. These days Ubuntu's minimum requirements are:
2 GHz dual core processor
4 GiB RAM (system memory)
VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution

I agree it could be an I/O problem and old hardware may not be able to keep up with the needs of a modern desktop. Adding more RAM if necessary / possible and switching to a lighter desktop might improve performance a bit. You did not specify which desktop or Ubuntu flavor you installed but if Lubuntu or Xubuntu do not work there are more lighter weight distributions like Bodhi that might work better on an older computer.

This is a followup to above responses.

The hardware is a AMD phenom ii x4 955 x4. I have 4GB ram. GeForce GT 430 vid. = not great but certainly sufficient.

I have two installed hard drives. One (1TB) is running Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS as the master HD. Ubuntu runs fine.

The other HD (1TB) is mounted as a slave and is the entire old system with all my files and music. I have it auto-mount at log-in. Music on it runs fine, but I cannot move or delete or rename or update tags on these files. This is a permissions issue. Pictures and such on the slave drive give 'you do not have permission'. I want ROOT permission of EVERY file on the mounted slave HD. I should be able to move or rename ANY file I want without having to get individual permissions.

I do not know what ugoa is or chown but will do some reading - thanks.

The DVD/CD player is an LG unit. It worked fine until a week ago - I ran 18.04 off of the demo CD for a MONTH before I installed it! and now has trouble loading/playing music CDs - is there a way to diagnose this? to monitor the i/o and see if this is a hardware or program issue?

DVD/CD players can get dirty (internally). Which might require the lens to be cleaned. More so with smokers and/or pets in the house. Isopropyl alcohol or rubbing alcohol and a Qtip, while unplugged / off of course.

UGOA is user group other all type permissions. ls -l shows the attributes.

$ ls -l /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-6-amd64
Where 1 is the owner / user Read+Write+eXecute permissions
Where 2 is the group RWX permissions
Where 3 is the other / everyone RWX permissions
Where 4 is the owner / user
Where 5 is the group
Where 6 is the file size
Where 7 is the date / timestamp
Where 8 is the file name and location in this case.

Where chmod modifies the RWX permissions
Where chown modifies the owner/user (and/or group with :group)
Where chgrp modifies the group

$ man chmod
$ man chown
$ man chgrp