2009/1/6 Glenn Stuart Morrissey <gmorrissey(a)kol.co.nz>:
Hi there all,
sorry for the dumb newbie question:
That's okay. We were all at that point some time too :-)
I have created a directory in my /usr directory called 'scilab'. I would like to have read/write permission for that directory and for directories within.
chmod -R +rwX directory_name -R (recursive) +rwX (give read and write permission, and execute permission if already set or is a directory, note capital X) directory_name (directory(ies) and/or file(s) you want to give permission too)
Would I be right to assume that I needed the ownership of scilab to be glenn instead of root, i.e:
If you are giving everyone read and write permission, then there would be no need to change ownership, as you (and everyone else accessing the computer) can read and write to it.
how do I command Linux to change from root to me?
To change ownership of the directory from root to you, run: sudo chown <user> <directory> replacing <user> and <directory> with the appropriate information. Like with chmod you can add a -R switch for recursive changing of ownership. See the chmod and chown man pages for more information. -- simon