How to change default user when browsing. Fatdog64 <SOLVED>

[dcung]

Re-Open this thread. - Warning -

NOTE - This is on Fatdog64-721.

All 3 browsers (Firefox, Seamonkey, Chrome) were working as spot.

After I was able to run as root (Firefox & Seamonkey), I found that I could not run them as spot anymore, even after reversing what I did above.

Chrome, would not run as either root or spot. Uninstalled/Re-installed Chrome made no difference. No more Chrome...

For Firefox-spot & Seamonkey-spot, I think they somehow lost permission to spot's profile.

I still can use Firefox & Seamonkey as root.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, dcung.

Yah, sounds like you've got to change ownership permissions on your Firefox and Seamonkey profiles back to 'spot', since they will now be on 'root'. You get the 'Profile Missing' message because 'spot' can't read, write or execute anything with 'root' ownership. They're two entirely separate 'users'.

Not knowing exactly where Firefox & Seamonkey profiles are stored in Fatdog, I can't give you an exact example, but essentially you'll need to run

Code: Select all

chown -R spot:spot *path/to/your/profile* {*and hit 'Enter'*}

...in the terminal, for both profiles. You should then be able to run them as 'spot' again. (The '-R' is for 'recursive', meaning the change will be applied to everything below the specified 'level' in the file-system; you do, after all, want it to apply to everything inside the profile directory, too. It must be a capital 'R', as written.The small 'r' has a totally different meaning, but AFAICT, Busybox doesn't recognise it anyway.)

I'm guessing that's all it is. In Unix/Linux, as I understand it,

chown is the change ownership command.
chmod is the change mode command (i.e., who can view/read/write/execute to files....'Owner', a specific 'Group', or the 'World' (i.e., everybody)).

The latter is easier to do by right-clicking on any item, clicking 'Properties', then you'll see a series of checkboxes. For example:-





You can then set 'Read', 'Write', 'Execute' (rwx, as they're known in Linux shorthand) permissions for the appropriate groups by ticking/unticking the appropriate checkboxes, followed by clicking on 'Refresh'.

In the terminal, the above can be represented as

Code: Select all

rwx
rwx
rwx

If, say, write permissions were to be changed to owner only, it would then show as

Code: Select all

rwx
r-x
r-x

Short tutorial for you there! If you look at the way those boxes are laid out, like a 3x3 grid, plus the way they're labelled, the preceding may start to make a bit more sense.

Let us know if that helps, please.


Mike.

EDIT:- Almost forgot. You may find the attached wee script (by CatDude) useful. It's a tiny GTK GUI that allows you to change RWX permissions for any file easily and quickly, using the numerical system. Just download it, and click on it to run it.

777=rwx,rwx,rwx
755=rwx,r-x, r-x
744=rwx,r--, r--.

I used it quite often in the early days; I found it very helpful. That set of 9 'checkboxes' can be represented by just 3 numbers; see here for more detail as to how those numbers are arrived at. It might look at first sight as though I've gone a bit 'OTT' with this post....but if you intend to stay with Linux, this is essential stuff to learn, sooner or later (and is so often the root cause of many problems).

[dcung]

G'day Mike...

Thank you for the effort you put in. I appreciate it very much.
So, we can communicate at the same 'wavelength', hence more efficient...
Here's a little bit about me... (and give me time to read on the forum, and I'll know a bit about you...ha..ha.. )
I'm no stranger to Unix/Linux command lines or even Unix/Linux for that matter, but all these years 'spoilt' by Windoz, I become lazy...and those skill/knowledge evaporated/outdated as years go by... But I do retain them vaguely. Puppy linux rekindle my interest.

I am not having a go at you Mike.
I do seriously appreciate the effort. I just thought if you know (guess) my skill level (not terribly high, mind you), I can learn a lot more from you rather than stuff that I already knew. Hence, I'm better off...

I do enjoy this 'new found' puppy linux hobby...
In these last few weeks, I have downloaded various flavours and have played with over 10 (double that if you count 32 and 64 bit as separate items).

I almost have 10 flavours in this laptop alone, and just spent this morning swapping a bigger SSD to accommodate this new 'hobby'...

Already infected a couple family member with 'puppy linux' on their old laptops.. The sad thing is I'll have more to support in addition of their Windoz boxes... Well, family, what can you do..huh.


Anyway, I digress too far off-topic...

Not knowing exactly where Firefox & Seamonkey profiles are stored in Fatdog, I can't give you an exact example, but essentially you'll need to run...

This would require someone with intimate knowledge of Fatdog64 to 'repair' in reasonable time.
Between the two of us, probably we can solve it... (though more you than me that know more of course... ).
By myself, probably quicker to delete the savedir and restart... No - make that 'definitely"
But then, I'll (probably?) run into same problem if I wish to browse as 'root' again.

I saw some hidden directories with firefox & seamonkey profiles. Not sure if that's spot's or root's.

Anyway, this will be a secondary 'project' for me as I have to use bulk of my time exploring these puppies that I found...

And, as we speak, my XenPup64_75 has risen thru the ranks as I have configured as many apps comparable to my Fatdog64...

I'm yet to decide which of these puppies to 'cull'

Anyway, I'll post update if I tinker on this further...

Cheers.

[dcung]

Look what you did Mike...

You have ignited my tinkering on this topic again...

I found 2 hidden mozilla directories.
/.mozilla
/home/spot/.mozilla

Easy enough to guess which is whose.
I noticed both were owned by root, even spot's

I chmod 777 on spot -> didn't do the trick.
I changed ownership to spot -> bingo, both firefox-spot & seamonkey-spot run again....

Why/who/what changed its ownership?

Anyway - topic can be closed again...
I'm going to forget about chrome...

See, I told you 'we' can solve it between the two of us...

Cheers.

[step]

Hi cdung, maybe the following piece of information could help your orientation: Unlike most Puppies, Fatdog is a true multi-user system. So spot is a first-class user, although not the super user, which is root. That's why you found a mozilla profile for root (in root's estate) and a profile for spot (in spot's estate).
Unlike all major Linux distributions, Fatdog adheres to the Puppy philosophy of running the default user as root without resorting to sudo.
You can add new users to Fatdog. There's a User Manager applet in one of the control panel tabs.

[dcung]

Why/who/what changed its ownership?

I figured out what happened.
The culprit was me, but I won't take the blame...

Unlike other puppies, Fatdog64_721 "Savefile Tool" requires you to (re) boot with nosavefile option before you can use it. And when you do so, it seems to be looking for savefile not savedir. It didn't look intuitive and less convenient than others.
So, I never used it.

Having played with many puppies these few weeks, I saw that savefile/savedir tools are essentially taking backup of the file or the directory with optional compression.

So, in my wisdom, when it comes to Fatdog64, when I want to backup, I reboot to other puppies and took backup of my fatdog-savedir (by drag & drop).

The consequence is when I restore, spot's home dir inherited root as the owner.

I still never tried Fatdog tool. I don't know whether it preserves ownership.
I am not even sure that it does savedir backup (?). Put it in the queue as one thing to look into later...

[SFR]

So, in my wisdom, when it comes to Fatdog64, when I want to backup, I reboot to other puppies and took backup of my fatdog-savedir (by drag & drop).
The consequence is when I restore, spot's home dir inherited root as the owner.

Yes, in the original ROX-Filer when you copy a directory/symlink as root, its ownership changes to root:root as well.
Fatdog uses jun7's fork where it's been fixed: https://github.com/jun7/rox-filer/issues/124

Btw, Fatdog Savefile Tool is not a backup utility, it's for enlarging the savefile: http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... efile.html

If you want take a backup of your savefile/dir:
- if you're booting your Fatdog with savefile:ram boot option, just copy or archive/compress your savefile/dir, but do not save the session during the process,
- if you're booting with savefile:direct, it's safer to reboot with savefile:none and then take the backup.
This is to prevent the running system from making changes to savefile/dir contents, while being copied.

Greetings!

[dcung]

Btw, Fatdog Savefile Tool is not a backup utility, it's for enlarging the savefile

That explained it. When I saw the tool icon, I thought it was same/similar to other puppies' "Pupsave". No wonder when I run it, it didn't look like it was for the function I had in mind.

I boot with savefile:direct, that's why I reboot to other puppy when taking fatdog backup to save one reboot.

Thanks for chiming in...