I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

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I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

Postby kennygr » Feb 25th, '22, 20:00

I have tried to change my 'normal' user to be an Administrator, but I am not allowed to. I have tried when signed on as "root", but got the same response of "There was an error while saving changes", but no indication of what the error was, or why it occurred.

I also cannot copy and paste any files onto any drive unless I'm signed on as root. In most cases, I can't even access any other drive on my computer, and I don't know why that is.

Just as an FYI, I spent over 15 years as a PC Support Analyst, but I was only supporting Windows.

True, I'm a newbe, and I don't really know what I'm doing, so I'm asking for some help because I don't even know what to look for, or where to look, within the Forum.

Ken
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Re: I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

Postby doktor5000 » Feb 25th, '22, 21:09

How did you try in particular, you don't mention ?

For creating files on other drives, best post the output of
Code: Select all
mount
cat /etc/fstab

and also mention what desktop environment you're using and how you mounted the other drives in the first place.
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Re: I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

Postby benmc » Feb 25th, '22, 21:49

kennygr wrote:I also cannot copy and paste any files onto any drive unless I'm signed on as root. In most cases, I can't even access any other drive on my computer, and I don't know why that is
.

yes, this is a hurdle that windows users - me included,, needed to overcome

your user do not have read or write access to the "drive", but the super user "root" does.

sometimes google is a friend => https://www.section.io/engineering-educ ... ons-linux/
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Re: I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

Postby kennygr » Feb 25th, '22, 22:16

doktor5000 wrote:How did you try in particular, you don't mention ?

I had signed on as "root", went to "Users" and selected the only other user that is available. I double left clicked on that User and, using the drop-down option for "Account type" selected Administrator, then clicked on "Apply" down in the lower right corner. That resulted in an error message of "There was an error while saving changes". No other error code or number was provided to let me know anything.

For creating files on other drives, best post the output of
Code: Select all
mount
cat /etc/fstab

and also mention what desktop environment you're using and how you mounted the other drives in the first place.


Okay, I am using KDE Plasma Breeze. The drives seem to be automatically mounted and available to root. Finally, I do not know how to execute the "
Code: Select all
mount
cat /etc/fstab
". I tried using "konsole" but only got a "Command not found" error.
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Re: I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

Postby kennygr » Feb 25th, '22, 22:18

benmc wrote:
kennygr wrote:I also cannot copy and paste any files onto any drive unless I'm signed on as root. In most cases, I can't even access any other drive on my computer, and I don't know why that is
.

yes, this is a hurdle that windows users - me included,, needed to overcome

your user do not have read or write access to the "drive", but the super user "root" does.

sometimes google is a friend => https://www.section.io/engineering-educ ... ons-linux/


Thanks for that suggestion! I'll look that up this evening as I've got other things going on right now (like building a fire in the fireplace to keep my Wife and I warm). :x
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Re: I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

Postby magic » Feb 26th, '22, 00:35

kennygr wrote:Finally, I do not know how to execute the "
Code: Select all
mount
cat /etc/fstab
". I tried using "konsole" but only got a "Command not found" error.

Yes, konsole is the correct thing to use.
If you're having trouble with copying the text at the moment just try manually typing the two commands 'mount' and 'cat /etc/fstab'

When you try and open one of these drives (as a user) does dolphin give you an error message? (message in red background pops up)


As for trying to make your user an administrator - enabling sudo for your user account would probably be useful (if you used the classic installer adding your user to the 'wheel' group should be all you have to do otherwise you'll also need to install the sudo package). Anything further than that is likely to end up causing more problems than it solves.
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Re: I cannot change a User to become an Administrator...why?

Postby benmc » Feb 27th, '22, 06:04

sorry, cant help with changing a user to admin (I keep them seperate), or the why or not.
fortunately, with Linux, there is nearly always more than one way to achieve a desired outcome.

so, lets go for a walk......
launch Dolphin. right click on"/- Root" and from the mouse menu, choose properties, and on the tab, permissions. you should be presented with something like this.
user dolphin.png
user dolphin.png (98.08 KiB) Viewed 1393 times

in the image, just below right of the mouse menu it lists ownership of the "/_ Root" partition as User: root and Group: root.
at the top of the tab, we have "Access Permissions" only the owner can change permissions.
note that the 3 next text info is greyed out . as you are not "root", you, as "user" can make no changes to the root partition, no new folders or files, as it should be.

lets do the same as on any of the "user" folders,(Videos?) and the "Permissions" tab will show ownership as "User: your_user_name" and "Group : your_user_name"
and in the top part of the tab, you will note that the formerly greyed out text boxes are now able to be edited.
as you are owner of "Videos", you can add, edit or delete files in this folder (directory).

check those partitions you cannot past a file too. they were created by root, so should be owned by root. you, as a user, do not have the rights to create a partition.
so, now exit/close dolphin.

so, to change to "root" without logging out, open a terminal and you should see this
Code: Select all
[user@localhost /]$

the prompt "$" indicates normal user terminal.
Code: Select all
[user@localhost /]$ su -
Password:
[root@localhost ~]#

you are now in a root terminal, indicated by the # prompt. note the "-" after the "su" and a space
if you now type "dolphin" and press the "enter" key, dolphin will open with root permissions. you can now change the permissions of the problematic partitions and user and group by altering those boxes as shown above. be aware that running graphical applications as root can cause accidental damage that may not show unit much later.
do not change the permissions of the " /_Root" partition, or any files/folders below " / " in the directory tree. I thought it a good idea to mention this!
again, use with care.

close dolphin and exit the terminal. as a normal user, you should now be able to write files to, edit files in, and delete files in that partition.
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