linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] USBs Read only

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] USBs Read only

On 10/19/2013 3:56 AM, waltmatheus@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> Joan, thanks for your reply. I believe you know that I've been
> struggling with Linux for quite some time.
>

Walt, don't worry about that. Everybody and I do mean EVERYBODY has
been where you are. None of us was
born with a knowledge of Linux.

>
> "SU mode to your file manager", when you refer to SU mode I'm guessing
> you mean access to the root. If so, at this time I don't have root
> access.
>

Actually, in Mint you do but probably don't know how to access it or use
it. SU (actually typed as "su" without
quotes) simply means "switch user". It is a command line concept but
can be extended into the GUI/desktop
manager. Your desktop manager we will refer to as Cinnamon which is not
perfectly accurate but is good enough
for our purposes. The correct way to issue the command is "su [-]
[user]". The dash means to run all of the
startup information for the user to which you are switching. User means
the username to which you are switching.
If no user name is supplied (command "su -") then the user defaults to
root which is god-like in Linux. An extension
of the su concept is a command "sudo" which allows the user to run any
single command as the root user. This
is used by Mint and by Ubuntu to try to keep people from harming
themselves and their computer. In both
distributions when they are installed you really cannot do "su -" to
become root. There are ways to change that
but that is not needed to accomplish what you want.

> Don't know how to get it, not sure I even want to at his time because
> of my lack of understanding of the language of Linux.
>

That depends on whether you are trying to learn Linux or trying to learn
to use Linux. If you are trying to learn Linux, remember
you can always scrap the current install by reinstalling over it. That
gives you a tremendous amount of freedom
to try things and not worry if you screw them up. If on the other hand
you are trying to learn to *use* Linux
then you probably want to stay away from "sudo" until you are more
comfortable.

What you are trying to learn is not obvious from your original post.
Attaching a USB drive or stick to your
computer would be something you would want to do regardless of what you
are trying to learn. Furthermore,
you should not have to jump through hoops like we are describing to do
it. I don't have Mint 15 installed on any
machine so I will fire it up later and see if I can figure out what went
wrong. I have Mint 13 (Long term support)
installed and never had the issue you are describing. Mint should do
the following when you plug in a USB drive:

1. Put an icon for the drive on the desktop
2. Open a window showing the content of the drive
3. Allow you to copy files to/from the USB drive
4. Allow you to delete files on the USB drive.

And Mint 15 as you have installed it is not allowing you to do it. That
could be an issue with Mint 15 or with
the install. I will do some more checking in order to figure out what
the issue is.

> "probably a permissions problem", yes, it is definitely a permission
> problem. I am unable to change the permissions from read only to
> read/write.
>
> "Check into their Forum", I have not done so yet in this regard, but,
> have posted two other inquiries in a mint community forum that have
> not gotten any responses. I have searched on Google and found that
> others have the same permissions issue but I did not find a simple
> solution.
>
Then it does not sound like an install issue if others have the same
issue. It sounds like a Mint 15 issue. If
so, they should have it fixed pretty soon.

> I will try booting to the Mint DVD then accessing a USB drive but
> would much rather be able to do so from the installed OS.
>
>

Agreed. My guess is that check is to see if it is a Mint 15 issue
rather that being suggested as a reasonable workaround.

> My primary reason for wanting to be able to write to a USB device is
> to be able to transfers any needed/wanted files to an XP machine that
> will go offline when XP reaches end-of-life in April.
>
>

Are the two computers on the same network? If so there is a simpler
process where you can transfer the files
over the network. Let us know if that is the case.

<snip>
>
>
>

Please see my suggestions in-line above. What I mean by in-line is that
I will go directly below a given statement
or question and respond to it.

Loyal