I have just installed Slackware 11.0 and I'm looking to add my user (john) to more groups than just user. I don't know what permission each group gives. I'm wondering if someone could list the groups and there related permissions or direct to a list. I want to be able to make a better decision about what groups I need to be a part of. If there is already a thread or list on this please direct me to it. Thanks

I don't have a comprehensive answer. Some are pretty self-explanatory such as audio, video, cdrom, etc.

Another that is worth knowing about is wheel which allows your username to sudo.

Note that you can get a feel for what directories are associated with a particular group by doing:

The 2>/dev/null prevents the display of errors arising from trying to look at privileged directories.

You can do the same for files by specifying '-type f' instead of '-type d'

In addition to xflow7's answer:

Let's say we have the following users and groups.

User x1 has a file xxx whose permissions are 640, which means that user x1 can read and write to the file (the 6), and other users in his group can read the file (the 4).

Let's consider all files which, like file xxx, have permissions that allow all users in group xg to read them (-4-), write them (-2-), execute them (-1-), whatever. Let's suppose that, for purposes of accessing these files, user y1 should be an "honorary member" (that's my term, not a technical term) of group xg. If you add user y1 to group xg's line in /etc/group, he will now be such an honorary member.

The only additional permissions user y1 has received is to get access to files created by users in group wg, and only those files which have group permissions of some sort.

Thanks xflow and wjevans. I appreciated the help and I'll have you know that your help has gotten me one step closer to switching totally to linux. I now have DVD video playing on my slackbox.

hi, i was wondering what the difference is between using the numbers way of changing file permissions (as in wjevans post), and doing something like 'chmod rwx=u filename' ?

There's no difference. It's two ways of expressing the same thing, one more human-readable than the other.

ah right, thanks uselpa