I actually only started using Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS in December of 2014. I know little to nothing concerning the commands needed in terminal to do what I would like to do. So, if someone might be able to guide me in the right direction, I would deeply appreciate it.
First though I am running Ubuntu on a single desktop. An older Asus with 2mgs Ram, a new Segate 750Gb HD, Dual boot with Windows 7 pro freshly installed. I also have a 500 Gb as a secondary drive installed as well. I believe the processor is an Intel 2.5 GHz dual core, 32 bit. (Iknow it is 32bit)
I need to change permissions on several file folders in order to be able to copy a file but get denighed. I am the Admin as the way the OS was installed. I have been reading (Troubleshooting-Cups-and-Asking-for-Help HowTo (A guide for the Desperate by Kurt Pfeifle.) I have been trying to install a Parallel printer, Epson LQ570+ Matrix printer but there are no PPDs that are actually up to talking to the printer which uses ESC/P2 langage as everything is basically inkjet, laser, USB connection. Mr. Pfeifle says that a Windows NT 4 driver will work with not problems and states that the driver has to be copied directly as it is into the following forlder /s being the last one listed. This is how he says to do this, "Put a copy into your usr/share/cups/model/ directory to make it available for installation through the Web Interface."
Every time I try anything concerning these areas I get denighed. Could someone give me the proper command syntax to be able to do the file placement? Copy, drag and drop certainly doesn't work at all.
Thank You, Jim

What do you mean with that you are "admin".

Do you mean that you run xwindows (the GUI) as root? Or as normal user?

Please open a standard xterminal any type the following:

whoami

and

ls -l /usr/share/cups/model/

and post the results here.

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You state you have no command line (i.e. terminal) knowledge - does this quote then only relate to using the GUI ?.

As a general rule, you should never contemplate changing the permission(s) on folders - sure path to monumental grief. You need the ability to assume sufficient authority to do the task (cp in this case) - Ubuntu uses "sudo" for this.
Answer the request above, and we can proceed.

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Riva, I am setup as the Administrator on the system in Ubuntu. As far as Windows 7 goes, it is a side-by-side setup and basically each OS has roughly half of the hard drive to run on. I am "not trying" to run both OS/s at the same time nor do I want to. I will leave that sort of thing alone for this time and until I get the hang of Ubuntu which is the OS I have been working in so far. The machine signs on giving me a choice of which OS I want to run and if I don't choose. Ubuntu runs automatically.
I will try what you have suggested shortly and "try" to post it at a little later time as I have a doctor's appointment and can't do it right now.
Thank you, Jim

SygOO, The Terminal portion and it's commands are where I have to learn what I am doing. Everything else basically seems to be easy enough to work with but to try what I need to try has to be done through the Terminal. Everything I try as far as even opening up the folders as directed in the Instructions Kurt Pfeifle suggested comes back with access denighed and I don't have the permission to do anything.
As far as "backups," I have the automatic backup set to back up to my secondary hard drive. I also have a start-up disk burned as well. Other than anything else goes concerning backups, well I don't know how else to do it yet.
Thanks, Jim

Rava, I have the screen shot you asked for but I don't see how to place it at the moment. Thanks, Jim
Hay, I made it!

Attached Thumbnails

 

Give specific commands for opening files you have tried. By this I mean; open the terminal and run the commands and then post the entire output of that command.

Screen shots are not the best way to do this. Use code tags. This is easiest done if you use the reply button instead of the Quick Reply box.

Typing the code tags words fine in the Quick Reply box.

That way the output, if long, is easier to read and we can copy/paste it to a text editor for better study.

From what you say I suspect that your command is faulty. Changing file permissions is not the best way to solve that unless you really like fixing broken systems.

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Widget, I didn't use any commands as I don't know them. All I did was to open the folders by clicking on them and tried to copy a file into the "share folder" and was denighed access. I want to try to insert a window NT printer driver in the "share" folder as suggested in my first post. From all of the problems just trying to drop the file into that folder, I assumed I have to go the route of using some sort of commands in the Terminal. Please see my first post. Thank you, Jim

The folder usr/share/cups/ is owned by 'root', so you will have to copy it there as the 'root' user.
(Either on the command line or by using a file manager started by 'root'.)

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fatmac, Thank you much for the information. I am in the very-very early learning stages of doing all of these things. However, I have no idea what commands I need to use or how to really use the file manager as yet. So, if you might tell me how to go about what you have suggested it would help me greatly.
I have just printed out a few hundred pages of "Unix/Linix Printing - Linux Help" which seems to be a condensed version of a manual to see if I might be able to get a little better grasp about all of these things.
Thank you, Jim

Ubuntu does not enable a Root account.

You are not, as you may assume, running a single user box. You have a user account and control all files related to that user.

The other user on the system is called root. Root is the only user with permission to deal with system files.

Navigate to your usr/share/cups/model directory, right click on that and choose the Properties>Permissions option. You will see it is owned by Root.

Do the same for any file in your /home/<user name> directory and you will see that you own those files and that you have read/write permissions and all other users can read the files. You will also see that there is a Group with your name as its name. As you own those files you can change the permissions there so that, for instance, other users, if there were any, could be added to your group and members of that group could have read/write permissions. Or give all users on the system read/write permissions.

Root on the other hand is actually the user that created your account and your group and all other groups. Root could delete you as a user and the system itself would still function. Not very useful to you but it illustrates that Linux is a multi user system at all times and we need to keep this in mind when thinking about permissions.

You could have 100 (or any number) of users with individual accounts. You really don't want them all to be messing with the system files or installing and removing packages at their whim. This would have negative affects on some other users such as removing applications they use regularly.

So the only user that can mess with the system is root.

Under Ubuntu the command sudo is set up by default to grant members of the sudoers group permissions equaling root permissions. You can open a terminal and run;
This will give you a list of the groups you belong to. Sudoers will be in that list.

I assume you have installed packages on your system. When you did so you were asked for your login password. This was actually used as your sudo password at that time and gave you root permission for that operation.

You can do the same thing in terminal by using the sudo command. You should check Ubuntu documentation on it. Do this while using Ubuntu so you cah actually open a terminal and try it.

In the case of the file you need to put in the usr/share/cups/model/ directory you need to put it someplace you can access it. Then go to terminal and;
Obviously you need to use the path to your needed file instead of the tarball (that you don't have) for Seamonkey.

You can get that path easily correct by putting the file where ever you want it in your /home directory, right clicking on it and selecting the option "copy" and simply going to your terminal and right clicking in it after the sudo command and selectiy the paste option. This will generate the correct path to that file on the command line.

Then you need a space and the path to the intended target directory.

Hit enter. You will be asked for your password. Give it. Hit enter. This should copy the file to the target directory.

Note that this changes no permissions of files or directories. It changes, in reality, the user of your account into root for that one process.

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Widget, This I must say is the first time I have had or seen the "user thing" explained so clearly and much easier to understand. I had found "root" and the "user" as well as the "permissions" rather hard to nail down, for me anyway. I had discovered "sort of." that "root" was it's own sort of special system deal so. I have purposely not fiddled with it thus far. Not to say that I couldn't re-install everything and start over but after going through that many times in Windows, well I kind of hate the thought!
I will try as you have suggested as now I can make some sense out of what to do. Reading all the posts both here and on Ubuntu, there are so many various situation that "might be close" but are also different I have not tried a great many of the things I have read. Up to the moment I have printed out nearly 1,500 pages of posts and what have you just trying to get some sort of clear idea what to try. So I thank you very much and will let you know what happens as a point a bit later.
Right now I am running on the Windows 7 OS and installing my HP scanner. My old HP Pavilion a1620y totally crashed and will not boot up. I had installed a fresh Windows 7 Pro on it several months ago now and after the automatic update a few nights ago it died altogether and I can't get it to boot up even with the System disk or anything else for that matter. It also had two new HD's in it and the only thing I found that show me the drives are ok is Acronis but that program doesn't have a boot repair tool. I have also tried some "expensive programs" for that problem but, they haven't worked either.
So, one of the many reasons I have been playing around with this old Asus DT with Ubuntu as I am totally sick of Windows and the Crash Blue / Black Screens and having to kiss MS to be able to do a clean installation of the OS. Anyway, I want to thank you again as well as the other folks who have been helping me thus far, Jim

Widget, I am getting "sudo cd, command not found," Jim

Of course you do. The reason is simple. I can't type worth a damn.

Try cp instead.

I think that Widget had a typo in his suggested command (he and I have discussed this before; we both tend to be a bit fat-fingered at times). It should have been "cp" rather than "cd" following the "sudo" since "cd" is "Change Directory" while "cp" is CoPy."

Try "which sudo" first; that will show whether you actually have "sudo" capability. You should have, but strange things happen sometimes. If you do, this command will return the full path to the sudo program file. If it's missing, nothing will be returned.

Assuming that you do have it, enter the suggested copy command. You'll be asked to enter your login password before the command gets executed. You won't see any indication at all that it's going in, not even the stars that many program use to reassure you that the characters are being accepted. Hit ENTER when you're done and the copy should take place. You won't get any message to tell you it's done, but you can use the "ls" command to verify that it did indeed get copied.

And welcome to the wonderful world of Linux. You'll find the folk here are uniformly helpful, and also that there are usually at least a dozen different ways to do most anything. Be very cautious about blindly copying commands that you find on the web at large, however; a few malicious fellows seem to delight in answering questions with commands that not only can but will erase your entire system.

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