files ownership/permission problem


 
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Operating Systems Linux files ownership/permission problem
# 1  
Old 03-30-2006
files ownership/permission problem

all the files and directories in my system are owned by root only.i try to(from root loggin) change the permission on the file but not permitted.can any one help to fix my problem .also while installing any software always error occur like no makefile available
# 2  
Old 03-30-2006
Well you can change the ownership of the files that you don't want to belong to root. You can do that with the 'chown' command. It works like this:
# chown NEW_USER FILE_NAME (ex: chown fred games/ )

About the 'chmod' command you're probably not calling it correctly. As root you have (unless using some kind of flags) permission to do anything. So (DON'T DO THIS!):

# chmod -R 777 /

Would change all permissions on the disk to read/write/execute for all users.
A better option would be:

# chmod -R 755 /home

Which would change the permissions to rwx (read/write/execute) for owner and rx (read/execute) for group and other to every file in the home directory.

About the makefile. I honestly haven't written a single makefile to date but you can probably 'google' and find complete walkthroughs on the subject. Remember that a thread in a forum with several subjects tend to die quickly. Try to focus on a single question and you'll (mostly) get the answers you seek!

Regards
Richard
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