Next sudo and passwords:

I also think there are issues with sudo. Also it seems some new users like me think sudo is full root access. If sudo can give very specific rights I can understand it. It is different to user access with password. Sudo would seem to be an extra level of control between user access and root access?

I like the idea of just having root password on your own box. Sudo seems more appropriate for large numbers of users.

As I am with Ubuntu at the moment I will create a user account and password. I will put at the back of my mind someone could use my Live Ubuntu or full installation and use sudo to gain access.

Thanks Yancek. It was useful

Ok Widget

So - many good things and enjoyable when they work. Sometimes puzzling when the do not, but that's what keeps us interested I suppose.

You may not believe it but as we have been going along I have been scanning (quickly) on this forum and others suggested material for beginners. Two items I came across were using terminal/command instructions and installing an OS on a partition. Great minds think alike or just chance?

Although my reading was skimming it helped in the transferring of the mozilla file (are these the foo files you mentioned?) to downloads in the 'admin' user account. I use your command:

cp -R /home/ubuntu/.mozilla/firefox/90v1xy4e.default /home/admin/Downloads

Obviously with my details inserted. I identified the correct file 90v...... using the

ls ld /home/ubuntu/.mozilla/firefox/*.default

command.

It worked and file 90v1xy4e is now in my /home/admin/Downloads file. When I finally finish this file I will do the same for the ubuntu user configuration files.

The reason I say finally finish is because (I think you mentioned this would happen) I now cannot access the 90v1xy4e file. Permission not granted because it was created under the Ubuntu user?

So with my new found confidence I tried to use Terminal to chmod (yes I did that skim reading) the file. I used command:

/home/admin$ chmod ug+rwx /home/admin/Downloads/90v1xy4e.default

However, nothing is happening. There is no response in Terminal to this and when I try to open the file in the gui it says access not permitted. I also tried the above chmod command logged in as ubuntu (default user).

So, I am stuck.

But learning a lot which I think is your intention?

Sudo is a function to give users elevated permissions. By default, the only way anyone seems to use it, does give all users in the sudoers group full permissions to do anythng they want.


I have not looked at a new ISO from Manjaro for over a year so I am not sure they still do it this way but back then, at least, you actually gave a password to get into the live session and they posted it on their website so you could do so. You were asked for the user name (manjaro) and the password (manjaro). I have no idea if they support persistence. If they do then you could change the password easily using the "passwd" command.

I believe the Live session used sudo to save needing more than the one password. Their non-graphical installer was quite different and I liked it. Had a section for creating the user and would, right in the installer, create as many as you wanted. So you gave a user name and password for that user and were asked, before the password was processed, if the user should have sudo permissions. I, being me and only installing with one user, declined that but thought it was a great setup tool.

Decided not to be so lazy and run a search;
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Manjaro+live+with+persistence

Checking the hits didn't come up with much.
https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=760.0

is as close as it comes. Uses a Suse tool of some sort.

Your persistent partition for distros that natively support such things needs to be properly labeled so as to be recognized and needs a script copied to it.

One of the answers on the manjaro forum (from way back) said that you couldn't dd the ISO to a stick and set it up for persistence. This is crap. dd is the best thing to use for putting any ISO, live or not, on a stick. It will take the whold stick. You can, however, add as many partition on to the stick once the ISO is in place. I have a 32 gig stick with a Debian 7 (Wheezy) live on it. 8gig persistent partition and then the rest of the drive is a data partition for recovered files.

I have the 8 gig persistent partition so I can have a large music library for company when working on someones computer.

To dd an ISO to a stick;
This is the Debian recommended command. Will work without the "bs=4M: sync". I use the whole thing. Never gave any problem no matter what distro I used but I suppose the block size may optomally be different on a different distro.

The if is Input File. of is Output File.

if is true path to ISO. of is /dev/sdx where x is the device designation asigned by your system.

I use cfdisk to partition the stick after getting the ISO on there. cfdisk is included with all distros I have ever played with. cli ncurses partitioning agent. Aligns partition much better than gparted does.

Of course you have to use some other application with Windows but I have never done that. Don't use Windows at all because of Vista and being a grumpy geezer I hold a grudge.

You may want to try a different Live distro. You are somewhat familiar with the Debian branch of linux and I am partial to it so I will suggest Debian. They only put out an official Live ISO for stable (Debian 7, on which Ubuntu 12.04 was built) but the same team that puts that our puts out an unofficial ISO with nonfree content (the things that Ubuntu offers and uses to prove all other distros are hard).
http://live.debian.net/cdimage/relea...64/iso-hybrid/

http://live.debian.net/cdimage/relea...86/iso-hybrid/

You want the .iso file for which ever fits your system. Unity is not available. I think Gnome Shell sucks so I recommend Xfce but will admit that while their panel system and the rest of the system is great, if you use the menu instead of creating launchers on the panel you will not be pleased because their menu is crap.

Xfce doesn't offer a user/group gui.

When Jessie is released as the new stable (14.04 is based on it) there should be a Mate ISO which is forked from Gnome 2 and has a great panel system too. I used it until Gnome 3 was released. My wife uses Mate on her laptop, loves it. Being a panel freak I think the Xfce panel is what the Gnome 2 panel system wanted to grow up to be.

Unity was going to be in both Fedora and Suse repos and got to the Suse repo for one release and was dropped as no one used it. Fedora worked at porting it to their system for months and gave it up as not worth the effort. I know there are people that like it. That is fine with me. I think it is designed for illiterate HS dropouts that work in fast food joints. Yes I did test both it and Gnome Shell for Ubuntu. Gnome Shell sucks but is much better than Unity.

Cinnamon is a DE that is a fork of Gnome Shell and it is pretty usable. That is a Linux Mint development. Don't think it is in the Wheezy repos but is in Jessie. May be in backports, Mate now is for Wheezy (my wife runs Wheezy - I prefer unstable versions so run testing and Sid - sid mainly).

Ubuntu LTS is built on Debian testing. Jessie is not released yet because Debian doesn't work by the callendar and has rules about what stable means. It is stable enough for Ubuntu is not their criteria. Ubuntu regular releases, between the LTS releases, are based on Sid which is Debian unstable and where all packages for Debian testing start out.

I think, that if you want a stable OS you need to be looking at Debian or CentOS (a Red Hat branch distro). Lots of Linux folks think they have too many "old" packages. You use XP. Wheezy is 2 years old. A little age on a package means it has fewer bugs.

Both Fedora and Mageia are more upto date. I have used both and have Mageia installed on an external now. I think Fedora is more stable than Ubuntu in spite of having an almost identical dev cycle. Mageia is slightly, very slightly, behind Fedora and Ubuntu as far as the cutting edge but very close. It is generally very stable because they use more of a Debian approach to when to release.

The failure to have a set release date for the next stable drives some people up the wall. I can sympathize with businesses that want to know when they can upgrade to the next version but figuring 3 years with Debian will get you by fine as they try for a 2 year cycle and support the previous version (old stable) for a year after new stable is released so it really isn't a big damned deal.

Debian 6 (Squeeze) has reached its EOL but is still supported under a trial LTS program. Ubuntu needs this for their new, with 12.04 LTS, 5 year support policy. Certainly can't expect them to do the work to maintain all those packages. You can depend on them to take the credit for it though.

Wheezy and Jessie will probably be supported that way too. But we will have to see what happens. The squeeze-lts repo seems to be doing alright so far. At least my Squeeze has not broken and does get package upgrades. That they do not come from the Debian security team, who do a great job but don't have time to support several versions at once, worries me. But that is Ubuntus worry, not mine. I am keeping Squeeze on here to watch.

Debian installer sets up a root password and then a user and that users password. If you want sudo you need to set it up yourself.

In recovery mode you will be asked for your root password to continue if wanting to do some work while in recovery mode. Or just hit enter and continue on to a normal login.

I am told I don't understand the "Ubuntu security model". This, I think, is crap. I think I under stand it very well. It is the worst in Linux. It tries not to frighten you poor MS users. As an ex Window user I find this insulting.

By the way, I did read all the horror stories on the UFs about Debian being so hard to set up and use. Being me I installed it as my 3rd multi boot OS in my 4th week of using Linux and had no trouble with it at all. The LQ sticky thred on the sources.list was a big reason for that easy set up to give credit where credit is due. Lenny, Debian 5, was much harder to set up than Squeeze, Debian 6. With Wheezy and the start (Debian is slow to add new things to their work load) of Live install media and that team creating the unofficial nonfree Live Media about the only thing, besides eye candy of course, that Ubuntu offers is less stability and less default security. All the hardening applications available to Ubuntu come from the Debian repos in the first place so that is all available under Debian.

Look at your /etc/apt/sources.list either in your file manager or;
While looking at that monstrosity consider that the Sid sources.list only needs two lines. Including the repos for source code, only one with just binaries. With Stable you need 3 pairs of lines for the full repos.

Then as a thinking person, tell me which is more likely to be stable and easier to maintain the servers for in a timely fashion.

I will admit that an accusation of not understanding the Ubuntu package management model would be right though so it may be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Try sudoe to start the chmod command. Would be nice to know the output of;
before doing that.

I think that entire /home/admin directory is probably owned by root. You were using "sudo su" to switch users and so probably working as root at the time but in that users home directory. Not a good habit. The user Root should su to the normal user that owns a /home directory so as to work as that user and not screw up the ownership of files.

I for instance have logged into the system as root, not recommended by anyone, and, worse, used the internet. I open a terminal and su to my normal user and open my web browser from there. I really don't like the idea of cookies with root permissions.

I hasten to add that I don't make a habit of logging in as root. I have had some strange things, undoubtedly of a picnic nature, that have made that the only way to get in and, for me, figure out what the hell was wrong.

A live session, particularly without persistence, is the only really safe way to do that sort of login. There are single user (root) live distros that work that way for specific things like penetration testing.

I really think you would save your self a lot of time by taking that edX course. Isn't long. If you have some time every day you could breeze through it one "chapter" a day in about 18 days. But many of the chapters are pretty obvious and easy so it certainly doesn't need to take that long.

Some you should probably take notes on. I copy pasted some of it to a text editor.

Take the free option. The charge is mainly for supporting the Linux Foundation support for the course itself and I would like to do that but can't afford to. The id verified certificate may be a nice conceit but about as valuable as a Kindergarten Diploma in my opinion. Would look good printed out and on my mothers refridgerator but she has been dead for sometime so I saw no other use for that.

It is very well geared for your exact type of user though. Will give a very broad, if kind of shallow, fund of knowledge. Enough that you can get started and know enough to be able to easily find the rest of what you need easily. They go into users and groups, file management cli tools (like chmod, cp, mv, rm (remove - don't mention on ubuntu forums they will spank you - to dangerous), sed, cat and many more.

Basics of scripting in bash. Basics of bash. Basics of installing. Basics of DEs. Basics of text editors. And so on and so forth.

In your case this will, I am sure, give you all the start you need to be breaking things in a much more satisfying way. And how to find the info you need to fix it. Will open up subjects that appeal to you that you have not thought of yet.

Will for sure give you all the cli tools you need to ask good questions on forums to get good answers. Some places to look for answers in your system (try the command of just "dmesg" at the user {$} prompt - is fun. Is better piped to grep for specific things you may be looking for. And the course will tell you what that last sentence means.

One way they suggest taking the course, although not high on their list, is with a live session (no mention of persistence). The distros used as examples are CentOS, openSuse and Ubuntu and they suggest installing one of them so you are set there.

Just about any distro would do. Would be best if they were related to one of those distros though so the basic package management cli commands made sense. Used apt-get (Debian based systems), yum (RH based systems, and what ever Suse uses. Would be harder to take with Mageia and try to, with no experience, translate those commands to urpmi.

Is all Gnome based. So you have Unity with Ubuntu and some sort of Gnome fall back or something for CentOS and Gnome shell in openSuse (which doesn't install Gnome by default but uses KDE normally). So the gui tools are all pretty similar. I took it with Xfce but I know what tools to use there in place of the Gnome ones having used both a lot by now. As far as the cli goes you could be using anything or no DE at all.

Back to your files you could use the command for gedit, the default text editor for Gnome, to pull up your files.
if denied access add sudo to the command. Save to another stick. There are any number of ways to straighten out the premission in a system that is actually working correctly that would be easier then the one you have. Your live session with out persistence for instance.

Now I am intrigued:
When I switch (su) users from the default ubuntu user /home/admin to my created admin user /home admin I am asked for a password. (And also when I do this vice versa. I am confused as to why I would then be working as user Root?

This moves nicely to the two points you raise about the edX course and earlier about using maybe another Distro (Debian) to play on. Especially if I want persistence and root and user passwords without sudo necessarily.

Clearly I am as a cave person to Shakespeare when discussing Linux without the basics - Linux setup and Cli. Therefore, (as a decent student) i will sign up for the course and start whenever they allow. Thanks for tip about certification ( Quite like the idea of getting it and putting it on Mum's fridge but ditto sadly no longer with us).

So currently, I am sorting out this 'academic' exercise of getting these two foo? files over to admin user, opening them and making this account as near to the original as possible.

I hear what you say about Ubuntu. And apart from the idiosyncratic default user with no password and sudo issues I am maybe a bit more kind than you because they gave me some home of escaping prison Windows. They clearly have thought about attracting us urchins. I probably think, if I should become proficient in Linux I may come to think of Ubuntu as 'not my flavour', but for now it is giving me some practice.

Having said all that when I have completed this file transfer I will try out Debian as you suggest (or certainly another distro).

Next:

I tried sudo in front of my chmod command (result no such file or directory) and the gedit command (result permission denied)

Shall I therefore use my stick A (Live ISO) to sort out the file permissions in Stick B (the persistence version)? I think you hinted this would be a way forward?

Oh forgot, thanks for making me feel ok about trashing the OS from the start. Learning by doing (tinkering). Is there any other way to really get some real knowledge. I have bits of paper from many 'places of learning' but I have to say most real knowledge was gained on the job.

Some other things you suggested or asked:

1
"dmseg" gave command not found

2
gave unsurprisingly permission denied

However, looking at that file using the default user ubuntu here is what is in it:

ubuntu@ubuntu:/home/admin$ ls -l /home/admin/Downloads/90v1xy4e.default
total 8288
drwxr-xr-x 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:03 adblockplus
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 57327 Mar 11 02:02 addons.json
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 157428 Mar 11 02:02 blocklist.xml
drwx------ 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:03 bookmarkbackups
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 196608 Mar 11 02:02 cert8.db
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 454 Mar 11 02:03 cert_override.txt
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 157 Mar 11 02:02 compatibility.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 229376 Mar 11 02:02 content-prefs.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 524288 Mar 11 02:02 cookies.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 32768 Mar 11 02:02 cookies.sqlite-shm
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 590288 Mar 11 02:02 cookies.sqlite-wal
drwx------ 3 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:03 crashes
drwx------ 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 datareporting
drwx------ 5 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 extensions
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 1200 Mar 11 02:02 extensions.ini
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 65884 Mar 11 02:03 extensions.json
-rwx------ 1 ubuntu ubuntu 793 Mar 11 02:02 febeBUhistory.json
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ubuntu ubuntu 101687 Mar 11 02:03 febeExtensionData.json
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ubuntu ubuntu 48 Mar 11 02:03 febeIgnoreListData.json
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ubuntu ubuntu 131819 Mar 11 02:03 FEBEresults.html
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ubuntu ubuntu 175 Mar 11 02:03 febeUserDefinedBuData.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 196608 Mar 11 02:02 formhistory.sqlite
drwx------ 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 gmp
drwxr-xr-x 3 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 gmp-gmpopenh264
drwx------ 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 healthreport
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 1146880 Mar 11 02:02 healthreport.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 32768 Mar 11 02:03 healthreport.sqlite-shm
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 655872 Mar 11 02:03 healthreport.sqlite-wal
drwx------ 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 HTTPSEverywhereUserRules
drwxr-xr-x 4 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 jetpack
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 16384 Mar 11 02:03 key3.db
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ubuntu ubuntu 15 Mar 11 02:02 lock -> 127.0.1.1:+8294
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 4129 Mar 11 02:02 mimeTypes.rdf
drwx------ 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:03 minidumps
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 65536 Mar 11 02:02 permissions.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 1507328 Mar 11 02:02 places.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 32768 Mar 11 02:02 places.sqlite-shm
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 131200 Mar 11 02:03 places.sqlite-wal
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 3103 Mar 11 02:02 pluginreg.dat
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 19284 Mar 11 02:02 prefs.js
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 124126 Mar 11 02:02 search.json
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 91 Mar 11 02:02 search-metadata.json
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 16384 Mar 11 02:02 secmod.db
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 90 Mar 11 02:03 sessionCheckpoints.json
drwx------ 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:02 sessionstore-backups
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 2566 Mar 11 02:03 SiteSecurityServiceState.txt
-rwx------ 1 ubuntu ubuntu 29 Mar 11 02:02 times.json
drwxr-xr-x 2 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Mar 11 02:03 webapps
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 1933312 Mar 11 02:02 webappsstore.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 32768 Mar 11 02:03 webappsstore.sqlite-shm
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 295160 Mar 11 02:02 webappsstore.sqlite-wal
-rw------- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 2277 Mar 11 02:02 xulstore.json

Note the "$" dollar sign after admin. That means you are running the command as a normal user. With root/admin/sudo privileges, the dollar sign would be changed to a hash mark (#) and as stated above, if you preface the command with sudo, it should do the job.

Nothing will show in the terminal as output, that is expected behavior if it is successful. If you ran the ls -ld command on that directory before and after you run the sudo chmod command, you should see a differences in the privileges. Opening the nautilus file manager as a normal user will not give you sudo/root permissions. If you want to open nautilus with root/admin privileges you need to use gksu (if installed) or do: sudo su (password at prompt) then nautilus. You can also use: sudo nautilus (pasword at prompt) although that is discourage by Ubuntu.

I don't use Ubuntu that often but, my understanding of Ubuntu/sudo and the information you have posted is that both your users, the ubuntu user from the Live CD and the user you create are both "admin" users with root/sudo privileges. I think that would account for this, not really sure.

That should be dmesg, typo?

That output shows all the files owned by user:group ubuntu:ubuntu and I doubt your other user is a member of the ubuntu group.

dmseg should be dmesg.

I checked my post to make sure I had it right. I did, I am relieved as I am really good at typos.

I should have put that in code tags so it could be easily copy/pasted to your cli. Will quit being too lazy to do that.

When you create users, mess with users and mess with permissions under Linux you can get some really strange results. Particularly if you use tools you don't understand like using the Gnome user/group tool to do these things for you.

One thing I found doesn't look too bad. Site is usually a good source of information. I know nothing about the author. Looking over it quickly the general information looks correct and simply written.
http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials...le-permissions

I would get the information you need copied to a text file somewhere other than that persistent stick so you can start over.

But, this is Linux and this is your choice. You may be having too much fun to quit now.

You could drop the file into a directory (folder) on your XP install. While Windows has trouble even seeing a ext4 file system, Linux has no trouble with ntfs or fat which ever XP uses.

You could take that course and keep your notes on the XP installs file system too. Or set up a new persistent setup on the bigger stick.

I really think that course will help you see the whole Gnu/Linux system as a whole in a general way and that is simply a huge step in the right direction.

Note that yancek doesn't even list a Debian based system. It is all Gnu/Linux. The Linux kernel and the Gnu applications are what make up all distros. While there will be differences in available packages, some significant differences in implementation of the kernel (Debian uid/gid numbers are different than RH based ones, I believe Slackware is the same as RH and Debian is the outfit making a custom change there, have no idea about Arch based systems and should, I have one installed), some files may be in slightly different places also. But it is all based on the same foundation and all the core commands do the same things across the board.

As some of the commands are actually the work of the Free Software Foundation (the Gnu part of this whole thing) some may not be installed on some systems by default but they will be available.

Trying some other OS's is a really good idea. While I think that beating Debian with Xfce is simply hard to beat you may not think so at all. You haven't dealt with the Debian package management long enough to be habituated so any other system will be relatively easy at this point to learn.

Ubuntu is the big dog right now. Great marketing. Debian, RH and Slackware are old enough to drink and drive interstate trucks here in the USA. They did not survive this long by being really hard to use, unstable or unreliable. They may not be the prettiest. They tend to think you can do that for yourself.

Out of being just nosey; what size is your hard drive and is there more than one? External drives?

I ask because people don't think about this as Windows pretty much has to be in one place for it to boot. Linux will boot from about anything and anywhere. I had a full install on a camera memory card booted from my card reader.

Thanks for the above Yancek. It made it easier to understand and also for the other insights and typo alert. I am reading and writing at speed with this stuff. No excuse I know. Good to have your continued input.

My failure Widget not yours - ditto my comments above to yancek.

It is not only with new OS that one gets problems. I had the day from hell today (my problem) but to give you a brief overview I was trying to update my profile and add ons etc in Firefox on both laptops (thinking it would be a good step prior to selecting the Linux OS to move over to eventually). Oh dear, I used to like Firefox, decent search and especially restore session together with easy bookmarks. well, not now. I ended up losing all my open tabs (yes) it is a bad habit - I have multiple pages open at once and often leave them open. Of course I have been updating FF as well and it did not restore my extensions (why?) especially the much used session restore. Anyway, spent many hours now trying to get 3rd party bookmark managers, re-apply session restore etc etc. I will eventually get there.

Now all that had little to do with the problem in hand except that I eventually will transfer these files from the original user account in Ubuntu (including the FF profile therein) ha ha.

Going back to your point above. A good thing today (perhaps the only one) was I was considering why I was intrigued by Linux beyond my initial interest of getting something to replace my XP (which I want to keep although not use on a daily basis). Going to the permissions question. Somewhere in my recent fast reading around Linux someone said 'it is all about files'. Linux is files. And so by implication I think permissions is essential to everything.

In addition over that morning coffee (only time when the brain actually works) I also realised that is what appeals to me about Linux. You may laugh but I like things in their correct place (only seems to be in theory generally) so again Linux appeals over the scatter gun approach of Windows.

By the way the above article you provided is excellent and much better than the material I read to get my chmod effort together.

So back to issues:


When I move the files they will still have what ever user permissions were on them.
They are probably incorrect/or trashed because of my messing.
Even if I kept ubuntu - fresh install and added the files - I see a great deal of problems in getting the files open and talking to FF and my configuration in home of my new install.

There is also then the issue of accessing the dodgy files in B - the Live USB using the original non-persitent Ubuntu version on A? I think you hinted tha might work?

Finally If I try say Debian as a live USB with persistence (replacing the live Ubuntu version after removing all the files I need) will those removed files stand a chance of working on Debian? just curious before I decide which way to go.

I have had a quick review of the various versions of Linux available. Good of you to point out the relevant matters and particularly that Debian has been around a bit longer therefore the bugs sorted. As far as I know there seem to be two branches of Linux. Fedora and Red Hat on one side and the Debian family on the other. (Could be wrong about that).

At the moment Debian looks good with Gnome 3? I don't really have enough knowledge to choose. I did like the desktop of Ubuntu and that looks like Gnome?

Hard drive is a good 120 Gb for a netbook which is why I want to keep it going. Nice little unit. External - only small USB's up to 4 GB. I may get a couple of 8 - 15 GB to keep a whole full distro on when I choose.

On this point - I was reading some bad things arising from partitioning. Many people dual loading windows and Linux and not being able to get Windows working/booting again. I know W. likes the hard drive to itself. Partitioning looks to be a big deal. One reason why I am using USB's for now. (And as I said I will keep the XP - not out of love for Windows though).

Also I am very interested in keeping the user home file off the USB or HDD where the distro is placed. How does that actually work? When you use the live USB - do some work - then put in another USB with the home file only on it. How would you actually save the new work additional to what is already there?

So now I'll go back to trying to sort out FF.