some chmod questions...
 

Ok, I am working on using the chmod and chown commands. Here's what I have now. I have some files in my root directory that I copied over to my other username's directory. While doing this, all permissions stayed the same obviously. I was able to chown of the main directory but the subdirectories have the same permissions as before (from where they were from root)...and that's A LOT of subdirectories and files. Is there any quick way I can change permissions to all these at once rather than each folder/file separately.

chown -R

BE CAREFUL WITH THIS... you can screw things up. Make sure you are changing the directory you want. You should be careful with any command that recurses down the tree.

chown -R

man chown

Re: some chmod questions...
 

chown -R user /path/to/directory

This command will change ownership of /path/to/directory and any file/directory downward to user user.

Further RTFM: the chown man page

k, thanks....and yeah I am being careful. I only copied everything from my root directory over, so the original files will still be in the right place. Most of the copies will get deleted (noticed a lot of ./ type of directories), but I just wanna get a few files from here. Still, it's given me a chance to screw around with command line which was my reason.

You'll note that most people tend to be very careful when advising others to use recursive commands. Even where the risks are light...

For example, if you accidentally chown -R 'ed someone's home directory... you could easily fix it by repeating the command with their name. But if you chown -R 'd /usr/bin ... that would ruin tons of stuff. I recommend the "Unix Horror Stories" as required reading for anyone who is going to spend any amount of time as root on a *nix box. Lot's of examples of what NOT to do.