[Sussex] Working with files from Windows partition

[Steve Dobson]

Hi Gavin

On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 12:36:00AM +0100, Gavin Stevens wrote:
> A question if I may:

 Of course.
 
> My partner Tracy's PC is a dual boot of Win98 & Ubuntu.

A step in the right direction. Now just to ditch the Win98 partition. :-)
 
> There are some files (all of them .doc files that have been sent by
> e-mail) that she would like to be able to read, edit & print in Linux.
> 
> Why not use Win98? Because it gives an "illegal operation" warning when
> she tries to open these files in Windows (Tracy doesn't use MS Office,
> instead preferring WordPerfect 8). So, whereas Tracy used to forward
> them onto me so that I could print them for her, she would like to do
> this herself now that she has Ubuntu on her machine.
> 
> Currently, I can only open these files if I open Nautilus as root on her
> machine, double-clicking one of the files makes it open in OpenOffice.
> 
> I notice that in Ubuntu, root has a run level (is that the right term?)
> of 755, but viewing files in My Documents via Nautilus, shows these
> files with a level of 744, thus the Ubuntu root can't alter permissions
> or anything, because its level is less powerful than the level in My
> Documents.

"Run level" is not the right term.  These are the permissions of the file.
*nix has three sets of permissions: owner permissions, group permissions,
and other permissions.  Each set as three options: read, write and execute.
Read and write options are obvious, execute allows you to run the file
if it is a script or an executable - if it isn't then it has no effect.

The permissions of a file is reported in octal (base 8, values 0 - 7).
With the first octal digit representing the owner permissions, the
next octal digit the group permissions, and the last the other permissions.
For the set options the first bit shows the read option, the second the
write and the last execute.

Therefore 755 (111 101 101 when show in binary) gives the owner all 
rights and the group and other permissions all grant read and execute.

Because your referenced "My Documents" and Win98 I am assuming that the
files are on a FAT32 file system.  I don't remember what permissions FAT32
supports, but they don't map well to the *nix permissions so the FAT32
file system code under Linux fakes it, and only grants write rights to
the user that "mount"ed the file-system.
 
> There is probably a good reason for this, but if it isn't too dangerous,
> how would I change the run level of files in My Documents so that the
> ordinary user account can access them?

The easiest way to to change the mount options in /etc/fstab and then
have the user that wants to modify the files mount the file system.
The options you want are "rw,user,noauto".  This set the filesytem
to be mount read-write by any user and not done automagicly when Linux
boots.  The line should look something like this:

  /dev/hda1     /win98    vfat    rw,user,noauto     0   0

Most desktop systems have a mounter command somewhere to allow the user
to mount a file system no already mount (like the CDROM) or a USB disk.
I don't know where that is under Ubuntu.
 
> I hope this makes sense to someone.

I hope my reply make sense to you.

Steve

-- 
BOFH excuse #422:

Someone else stole your IP address, call the Internet detectives!
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