Hey guys, I'm new here and have a question that I hope one of you can answer. I'm using Kali Linux, and created a separate user from the root with the adduser cmd. When I su Milkman then try to list the contents of it, it comes back with ls: cannot open directory '.': Permission denied

I know it's something to do with the permissions, but I'm not exactly sure where to look.

Also, it won't let me sudo Milkman - it will say command not found...any help would be greatly appreciated

Why are you using Kali Linux ?

You need to read the sticky thread at the top of this forum, as well as their website, which clearly explains why you should not be using it to begin with. You clearly don't know what you're doing.

Why have you not read either ?

For a start, you should not be using Kali if you know so little about the Linux permissions system. Kali is a highly specialised distro designed for use by professional penetration testers. It is not suitable for newbies. I would strongly advise you to install Mint or Ubuntu for your first distro.

When you have a permissions problem, your first step should always be to view the ownership and permissions of the file concerned, in this case Milkman's home directory. Most graphical file managers have an option to view the permissions of a selected file. Or you can do it more quickly by opening a terminal and typing ls -l /home. The Milkman directory should be owned by Milkman with full rights (rwx) for the owner. Usually there are read and execute rights for the group (r-x) and the same or no rights at all for the world. If the permissions are not the ones you want, then, as root, change them. But don't do it in Kali! Get yourself a better distro.

As far as sudo is concerned, it only works if you first, as root, add the specified user to the sudoers file with full sudo access, or to a group that is listed in that file as having such access. But again, don't do it in Kali.

Except, if you do an 'su Milkman', you won't necessarily be in Milkman's home directory. You'll be in the same directory that you were in when you issue the su.

To be in Milkman's home directory, you need to start a login shell using 'su - Milkman' or 'su -l Milkman'.

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^ this.
or, try (as Milkman):

If you are an experienced Linux user who wants to use Kali Linux you should read this first (edit: especially point 1 which refers to the single (root) user design).

If you are not an experienced Linux user you should read this.

If you are not experienced in Linux and still want to use Kali your best and EASIEST option is to start using a mainstream distro first (Debian would be best since Kali is based on Debian); Kali IS NOT MEANT FOR INEXPERIENCED USERS - Kali "is designed for digital forensics, penetration testing and other network security auditing" by experienced users.

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Thanks for your post. This clarifies a lot. I did not bother so far to read about in detail about KALI.

LOL. Steam does not even work correctly on gentoo. Steam heavily relies on those newbie binary libaries, does hardly use any system libaries, and those libareis which are used need to be compiled in only one way of features. Very bad designed.

OK, I can tolerate one question about Kali. But Kali is designed for people who already know Linux. Anyone qualified to use Kali would know the answers to your questions. But I'd be curious, why did you choose Kali?

I picked Kali because of it's pen testing tools, that appealed to -me- personally. But now I am operating on Ubuntu because of the advice given here. Maybe one day I will work my way back to Kali, but as advised it's probably not the best distro to learn the linux foundation on. SORRY. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES.

Seriously, don't worry about it. It wasn't a mistake, just a learning experience. You are not the first, and certainly won't be the last, to have launched into Kali without learning Linux on a more gently curving slope.

Please don't hesitate to come back on here if you have any issues with your Ubuntu install.

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Yup! That's why we have that special article about Kali.

Ubuntu is a good distro to start with, but imho it does too much hand-holding. You might want to move on after a while to Debian or Slackware. Then try Kali, if you're genuinely interested in penetration testing. But mind you do the more destructive tests on your home network! There are tools in Kali that it's actually illegal to use on a public-facing machine.

TheMilkMan-Man,

Just so you know, you can install the very same "pentesting tools" you would find in Kali, on Ubuntu as well. There's nothing that says you can't - it may even have packages for those tools. I don't think (other than maybe 1 or 2 reply's) that most members that have replied to this thread meant to insult anyone. I'll speak for myself in saying that my reply was not intended that way.

But that said, you should read up on anything Linux before jumping in, as this way you can discover a lot of pitfalls before you fall into a trap to begin with. I never learnt anything about Linux without making mistakes along the way - it happens. No need to feel bad about it, so don't beat yourself up over it. I for one am still happy to try and help you if I can, and you've proven in my eyes that you're someone worth my time in helping.

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That's the thing about Kali. You can do everything Kali can do with any major distro. Kali is kind of a shortcut for experts. For that reason it's not beginner friendly.

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I honestly didn't even see the article about Kali, I googled my error issue and this form came up, I registered and posted. It was super late in the morning too, or, early , whichever you prefer to say.

And yes, I've noticed that Ubuntu has more GUI type installations than Kali does...

..But I STILL CAN'T GET PLAYONLINUX TO WORK, is the program this finicky with -all- distros of linux?!

You should continue to try and solve that problem in this thread: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ry-4175631489/

As this is not the right thread for that problem.

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