Im triying to run an application called "modalys" (which is on a USB key) on my laptop running on a live distribution of linux (ie mandriva one) because this laptop is only equiped with one HD and the guy who sold it to me made one unique windows 2000 partition on it, partition which i really dont want to mess up with caus it contains important data.

cant run modalys (exogenous executable on USB key),even with su
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Everything boots up quite fine. Problem arise when I try to run the executable file in the console. I get a permission denied error even when invoquing the executable file with su (command which I learned its existed wondering around in this forum).

Could this problem be solved by logging in as root?
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I am wondering if this problem could be solve by logging as root, which I cant caus Mandriva never asked me at boot-time the password for root (I tried some stupid ones like "admin", "root" or "mandriva" but it didnt work).

For info, here is the transcript of my commands in the console:

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[guest@localhost ~]$ who -a
2007-03-26 10:46 1285 id=si term=0 exit=0
system boot 2007-03-26 10:46
run-level 5 2007-03-26 10:46 last=S
2007-03-26 10:47 2016 id=l5 term=0 exit=0
LOGIN tty1 2007-03-26 10:47 5097 id=1
LOGIN tty2 2007-03-26 10:47 5098 id=2
LOGIN tty3 2007-03-26 10:47 5099 id=3
LOGIN tty4 2007-03-26 10:47 5100 id=4
LOGIN tty5 2007-03-26 10:47 5101 id=5
LOGIN tty6 2007-03-26 10:47 5102 id=6
guest + pts/0 2007-03-26 14:49 00:11 5472
guest + pts/1 2007-03-26 14:50 . 5717

[guest@localhost ~]$ ls -l '/mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/modalys'
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest root 1152003 Oct 29 2003 /mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/ modalys*

[guest@localhost ~]$ su root '/mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/modalys'
/mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/modalys: /mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/m odalys: cannot execute binary file

[guest@localhost ~]$ su root -c '/mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/modalys'
bash: /mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/modalys: Permission denied

[guest@localhost ~]$ su root
[root@localhost guest]# '/mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/modalys'
bash: /mnt/removable/Modalys-2.2.1-linux/modalys: Permission denied

[guest@localhost ~]$ sh
sh-3.1$ cd /
sh-3.1$ /bin/login root
Password:
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Could the lack of some kind of installation of the program be in cause?
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Looking in the program documentation, I found no evidence that an installation procedure had to be undertook before running the application. Does applications in Linux have to be installed in some particular way before running them (I have always been a end-user of Linux till this day...)

Could another distro of live Linux work better for me?
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If you have any suggestions concerning a distro that could do it for me, I would be glad to try it...

Thanks in advance for the help... cheers!

found a thread on the same problem on another site:
http://www.mepis.org/node/10553

I still haven't managed to make a linux partition on my USB key as proposed in this thread.. I typed "su -c '/sbin/fdisk /dev/sda1'", then deleted ('d' operator of fdisk) the existing FAT partitions and created new ones ('n' operator of fdisk). heres what I get from the 'p' (print) operator:

Disk /dev/sda1: 122 MB, 122813440 bytes
128 heads, 2 sectors/track, 936 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 256 * 512 = 131072 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1p1 1 936 119807 5 Extended
/dev/sda1p5 1 936 119806 83 Linux

Then here is what i get after asking for the writing of the partition:

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 22: Invalid argument.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.

On the positive side I managed to logout of my guest session and make a console loggin as root. At that point I tried to run the modalys application from my USB key (which its FAT partition and data where unchanged by the fdisk command). I received a "segmentation fault" error.

This is what happened to the guy in the quoted above thread... And this question remains unresolved...

!!! fiew.. I m becoming a grumpy computer guy Really tougher than I though to come back to Linux (with a live distro at least).. ll try to forget it for a little moment and hope someone has an idea.

ciao