User Accounts in Ubuntu 12.04

philipgr · 06-12-2012, 01:56 PM

Good evening

I have just purchased a 2TB hard drive which I partitioned using Windows 7. I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 in one of the partitions. I have Ubunbtu 9.04, 10.04LTS and Windows XP SP3 installed on one of my other two hard drives.

I have created a number of user accounts, all with admin rights, so that I can experiment with various desktops (I do not like Unity and GNOME3). I noticed in 12.04, unlike 10.04 and 9.04, you cannot add each user account to the other users own groups.

I find this extremely frustrating because in 12.04 I have to manually go and modify each file I want all the other users to access.

Does anyone know what I can do to get 12.04 to work like 10.04? I also noticed that unlike in 10.04 you can no longer give/remove access to peripherals in each users account. This is also very irritating.

Regards
Philip

sag47 · 06-13-2012, 12:52 AM

Are you not able to do it through the terminal?

Code:

usermod -a -G groupname user

I can do that just fine in my Kubuntu 12.04 installation.

pixellany · 06-13-2012, 03:54 AM

+1-----some tasks are faster and easier in a terminal

philipgr · 06-13-2012, 11:51 AM

Hi sag47 and pixellany

Tks for yr prompt replies. I could do it via the terminal but do not see why I should need to. It 10.04 it is faster and more efficient. I have six user accounts, including my own, which means I would need to do the usermod entry thirty times. In 10.04 all I need do is open up each user's group and with a few clicks add the other users. This more efficient.
I do not understand why the powers that be at Canonical decided to remove this useful functionality. Sometimes using the terminal is faster, but not always.

Regards
Philip

sag47 · 06-13-2012, 12:50 PM

It's not faster to do it in the GUI. With a simple for loop you can handle all the user accounts you need with group modification. However, this isn't a discussion of which is faster. I merely gave you a solution to your percieved problem.

An example of using a for loop would be...

Code:

for x in user1 user2 user3 user4 user5;do usermod -a -G somegroup $x;done

One could also easily parse /etc/passwd or /etc/group for the values they need and automatically populate affected users.

Why doesn't your Ubuntu work? Did you run an upgrade or is this a fresh install? I've not had any problems with the 12.04 series myself.

SAM

philipgr · 06-13-2012, 01:42 PM

Hi sag47

Pse accept my apologies for creating the impression that my comments were directed at yr suggestion. It was not so intended.

I did a fresh install on a new hard drive. I still have 10.04 on one of my other drives. I do not want to upgrade my 10.04 until I see what the best desktop solution is. I do not like Unity or GNOME3. I have created the user accounts so that I can try the Cinnamon, Mate, KDE and XFCE desktops to see which one can give me the same/similar functionality to my current GNOME2. I was also thinking of trying GNOME3 with the extensions that are now available. I just want all files in each user's home folder to be available to the other user accounts.

Regards
Philip

sag47 · 06-13-2012, 02:56 PM

Don't worry I wasn't taking offense to your reply so no need for appologies. I realize not everyone enjoys basking in the terminal. You may wish to try Kubuntu 12.04 which has KDE installed by default rather than Gnome. It is my preference and when I want a lighter weight GUI I use Openbox (a bit more advanced configuration wise).

philipgr · 07-03-2012, 12:41 PM

Good evening

I thought I would mention that when I was searching for an answer to another issue I am having I came across a solution to this issue of mine. The package gnome-system-tools which I downloaded via synaptic gave me back the package I was using, and accustomed to, in 10.04. I am now very happy. I am slowly getting GNOME 3 classic to look and work like GNOME 2.

Regards
Philip