ciao to all,
i'm a new linux user and after trying some others live distros i have discovered mcnlive toronto that is the only one that don't make me think to came back to windows.
I have remastered the original one adding italian language folder e nvidia drivers and amule om my 4gb pen drive with the very good GUI's
I created, with the SU file manager, a folder (/initrd/cdrom/documenti , I guess )on the pen drive in which i want to put other folders containing : photos, mp3s, text files, the incoming and temp folders of amule in order to be visible and to be used in Windows without having to run the entire operative system and to use the remaining 3.5 gb of the pen as a hard disk.
My problem is that i can't change permissions in this folders to be write by all, i have tried as root with the command "chmod o+rw /initrd/cdrom/documenti" but nothing only root can write and guest can only read so i can't save anything in that folders in a guest session.
Could you please explain me the right way to change permissions in such folders? (Possibly step by step since I'm a beginner on linux)


P.S. One more thing, is it possible to show the hard disks of the computer in the device folder on the desktop?

Thanks and congratulations for the very good job

Welcome pep65, and thanks for your kind words.



Am I right that you have one big partition on the usb stick where MCNLive is running?

Well, the easiest way is to delete the folder and try do make a new directory as user guest. Or are you saying that you are not able to write to the partition on the stick?
Also, try not to use /initrd/cdrom but the mount point under /mnt/win_X (where X depends on how many internal and external windows partitions are on your system).
And: don't you see the partition, when you double-click on the devices icon on the desktop. Here you should be able to open it as a user and write to it.

You can also try the dummy way.
Boot with the CD, plugin the key, double click the devices icon, click the partition on the key, now create as user guest the directories.



They should show up per default. At least, they do here on my system.

pep, I just reproduced the problem.
And please forget all my questions.

There is an issue, indeed, if you only have 1 partition and it is the same where your base live usb system is installed.
The partition is available under /mnt/win_X or by clicking the devices icon.
But a normal user can't write. Though all permissions are ok.

It is a problem I have overlooked. Originally we mounted the live usb system read-only, to prevent any writing!! Since we introduced the persist feature it is mounted read/write. But I have missed this problem.(related to the setup of a live system). I use several partitions on an external drive, the other partitions don't have this problem.

So far I can't give you a solution.
Just a workaraound. You don't need to start a root session or to login as root.
You would just start an application as root (within the guest GUI). You can do this by typing in the 'run command' mini cli in the panel, for example when you want to start kwrite as root:



Each program can be started this way, just by adding: kdesu

And congrats, pep, you discovered a bug -- or a feature?

Thanks Chirs for your courtesy.

now it works
Maybe this could be correct in a next version? Just not to have to open the programs as root all the times.

for the device folder: i have tried only on my 2 computers (one has an Intel ICH7R northbridge with two sata2 Maxtor HDD in raid0, another has a VIA K8M-890 chipset with a maxtor 120gb HDD) in both only the floppy drive and the usb icons appear. Maybe there's an incompatibility with my hardware?

grazie for your help.

PS I apologise for my english.

I"ll fix the user writing in the next version.

Reg. your hard disks, bad luck with the raid0 and the via chipset, it seems. Maybe there is a solution by manually loading some drivers, but I would not know which one. Someone else need to help.

Just an idea - don't try it unless chris:b gives approval. If your pendrive is formatted as vfat, then maybe you can use these parameters (edit /etc/fstab)

defaults,users,rw,umask=000

I did this on my desktop so linux and winxp could share a partition since ntfs-3g + fuse worked for me in one distro, but not in another.

john

P.S. Do thumb drives have a limit on the number of times they can be read or written to? Is there a workaround? Thanks.

pep uses the live usb on a usb stick with one partition. he is booting from this partition.
the problem is not an fstab issue. it is a problem that the basesystem resides in a compressed squashfs system and is initialised and mounted when booting.
we don't talk about a normal installation, but a live system on a usb drive.
i need to change an init script in the initrd to solve the problem.

thumb drives do have a limited lifetime, it depends on the brand, the quality and so on.
a recently purchased 4 GB flash drive should not have a problem, even with extensive writing to it.

MCNLive does not per default write to the drive.

I see. I had a feeling you might say that. I have never installed a distro on a thumb drive, so I didn't know if my suggestion would work. I offered anyway because I thought that I might learn something. One of these days I will need to find some information - not too technical - on the boot process. I would like to learn more. Thanks for the correction/clarification.

john