Permissions problem with usb installations. (RESOLVED)

[Howard]

I first discovered this with LXDE, and thought it was a problem with that DE, but now I find I have the same problem with all installations on my Dell mini 10v, but on none of the ones on an old iBuddy laptop.

Simply I cannot change ownership or permissions of any files or folders on this computer in LXDE, Minime 2010, or PCLOS 2009.2 KDE3.5.  (There is a similar set on the iBuddie, and all are OK).

Since the iBuddie has a disk drive (flaky but works most of the time!) they were all installed from live CDs.  The Dell doesn't have any sort of drive so I made a live USB from the 2009.2 live CD and used that to install this on the Dell.   Then I used the same USB drive for LXDE and  Minime 2010, replacing the isolinux folder and livecd.sqfs from their respective CDs.

I have noticed strange permission problems from time to time, but yesterday discovered that chown and chmod seem to be disabled on all these installations.  The commands seem to work, no error messages, but the users and permissions are unchanged.  The graphical methods in the file managers don't work either, but I presume they are using chown and chmod themselves.

I don't know enough to know what the problem might be, but reading these pages I wonder if is is something to do with partition permissions?  If so can I change them?

I'm thinking of buying a standalone USB DVD RW drive, and would then be able to install from disk, but I really don't want the bother of having to customise my installations all over again

[Old-Polack]

Howard:

How, and on what, are you using the commands?

[Howard]

Thanks for your interest Old-Pollack.

I've just re-tried LXDE and 2009.2KDE3.5,  I'm pretty sure that Minime 2010 behaves the same way.

File on same partition as OS:
I can change the owner and permission as user or root either using the graphical method in the file manager (right click>properties>permissions>edit window or by using e.g. chmod uo+rw file.name or chown newowner: file.name.

File on data partition via symlink or by navigating to the file through the directory tree:
None of the above works.  No error messages but no changes either.

I didn't try folders this time, but I have in the past with the same results.

Is that what you wanted to know?

[Old-Polack]

Thanks for your interest Old-Pollack.

I've just re-tried LXDE and 2009.2KDE3.5,  I'm pretty sure that Minime 2010 behaves the same way.

File on same partition as OS:
I can change the owner and permission as user or root either using the graphical method in the file manager (right click>properties>permissions>edit window or by using e.g. chmod uo+rw file.name or chown newowner: file.name.

File on data partition via symlink or by navigating to the file through the directory tree:
None of the above works.  No error messages but no changes either.

I didn't try folders this time, but I have in the past with the same results.

Is that what you wanted to know?

You are telling me a story, with your interpretation of actions and events. Now, try again with an accurate description of exactly which partitions you are having problems with, how they are mounted, where they are mounted, and the exact command you used. Use copy/paste to show the prompt, the command, and the entire results, as a block, so I can see exactly what you see.

[Howard]

After my previous post I went out to do some gardening while thinking about the problem.  And I realised that there was one important difference between the iBuddie and the Dell - the Dell also has XP on it and the main data partition is windows format not ext3.  It seems to be ntfs and not vfat, which could be the problem (I went with the defaults.)  I chose windows format for the data for the unlikely event that I needed to get at the data from XP.

I tried another data partition which is formatted as ext3 and everything is OK there, so it's only the windows partition that has the problem.  Here's the relevant bit of fstab:

# Entry for /dev/sda7 :
UUID=6e99d96e-16aa-44f9-9cb7-34c0e41f8258 / ext3 defaults 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda10 :
UUID=2376845A7B60D3C6 /data/sda10 ntfs-3g defaults,umask=000 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda11 :
UUID=51833f95-2954-4734-86a8-ec873afca71f /data/sda11 ext3 defaults 1 2

I could do all you asked, but in view of this narrowing of the problem it may be unnecessary. 

I now have an external DVD drive so I could save all the data and reformat sda10 if that would solve my problem.

[Old-Polack]

Howard:

And there you have your answer. NTFS, like Fat32, knows nothing of Unix/Linux permissions, or ownership. One cannot use Linux tools on them to change what doesn't exist.

[Howard]

Thanks Old-Polack,

It was your questions about the way partitions were mounted that lead my thoughts in the right direction.  I was put off by the fact that the folders & files appear to have an owner and permissions, but they are pseudo or virtual permissions to tell you that anyone can do anything with them I guess.

I was pretty sure that I was using the commands correctly - I've been familiar with a few basic unix commands since long before Linux was invented.   (I'm really Old-Limey)