Newbie question number 1 of 863:

Apparently I failed to give myself permission to edit files in my /etc folder. In fact, I don't seem to have permission to open some of my own folders. I thought I was root. I'm the only account on this system. I'm running Mandrake 9.1. How do I give myself permission to do whatever I want? lol, sounds like a funny question.

Also upon attempting to edit my user profile I seemed to mess up something. When I click on "UserDrake" in the control center it now tells me "Cannot lock user lib, file/etc/ptmp or /etc/gtmp exist"

Help!
Thanks

nah, that just means that the app crashed at a bad point last time you used it or somethign like that. as long as you don't have anything else open that would be editing the profiles, just delete those lock files listed there.

When you say you are the only user on the system does that mean you are loggin in withthe username "root"?

You must use the username root to get root access. Or login as a user then type "su"and enter the root password.

Well, it won't let me type in a name when I log. It's a graphical interface and your supposed to click on the user and log in as that user. There is only one user and he doesn't have permission to do anything bad to the system...like fix it, lol, or add a user to the system, like "root". Sigh, any ideas?

"Ctrl + Alt + F3" then login as "root".

Type "startx -- :1" (Yes guys I know this isn't reccomended but it is the easiest way for someone used to a gui)

You should then have access to what ever you want. Once you have finished:
logout
Type "exit"
Then "Ctrl + Alt + F7"

Yes! Now I can do some damage! Worst case I have to reinstall. Many thanks David. LOL, the screen is all red to warn me that I can do some serious damage from here. How else am I supposed to learn how something works if I can't break is a few times =) ?

Thanks!

evedently you aren't using gdm or kdm as your login mamager, as those allow you just to type in the login and password
you should be able to select that (if it's installed) by editing the /etc/inittab file

You probably selected to autologin your user during the install process. You can change that back via Mandrake control center.

You could give your user all of the permissions of root or login as root all of the time but that is not a wise idea. Besides from security issues with one slip of the keyboard you could delete your entire system.

Another method (command line )to login in as root is to open up a console window i.e xterm etc and use the su command. Type in the root password at the prompt. Take care of business. Then ype in exit to return to user.

I have so much to learn. I'm used to feeling like I have complete control over my system in ms windows. I'm going to try a new login manager, the Mandrake login thing is a bit cheesy.

Am I understanding correctly? "Root" shouldn't use the gui? How does one edit files as root then?

For example: I wanted to edit /etc/fstab to make my Sandisk flash memory card reader work. I managed to do that by using the method david_ross described above and opening the file with Kwriter. It that not the way this type of thing is normally done?

Thanks

I don't think he has autologin - You need to specify which accounts you want to appear in the login menu when you are setting up the display manager.

What's the command for this? I managed to do the same exact thing, and I'm a *complete" newb.

Thanks.

as root:
rm /etc/gtmp
y
rm /etc/ptmp