Create new folder, permission denied. First Post[Resolved]

[RSims]

Hey everyone, I've been posting on the Linux.com forums and using Ubuntu with KDE for about a year now. My report writing instructor at my college mentioned to me how he has an old P4 laptop that isn't even usable and is collecting dust in his closet, so I offered to install Linux on it to bring it back to life.

Here is how it all went:

First I installed Kubuntu 12.04, which ran horrible.

At this point I decided to put Lucid Puppy Linux on it, however his CD ROM drive was iffy on the first install, died completely while trying to put Puppy Linux on his system.

Not a problem, just put it on a USB drive and boot to USB right? Oh of-course it can't be that easy on me, his computer and BIOS is too old to support boot to USB. Fantastic.

So I grabbed my data transfer cable out, pulled out his hard drive, connected it to my laptop as a USB external and put the Puppy Linux CD in to install to his hard drive.

This however after hours of failed attempts, I decided to look for another distro that could get the job done and possibly give me a smoother install since the previous issues already ate up so much of my time.

Then I found Tiny Core Linux supposedly a break off from DSL Linux, checked out your website, so how small it is and I might add I am extremely impressed with your distro of Linux.

Anyway I downloaded TinyCore Plus, he has 512MB of RAM and 2.6 GHZ single core P4 processor, so as you know this laptop is just flying now. TinyCore installed perfect the first time as opposed to Puppy Linux.

Now I'm installing the programs and extensions he will need like firefox, libreoffice, etc.. to make it a usable and simple computer for a non Linux experienced person.

However I ran into this issue when trying to make a new folder in his Home folder for different downloads and items n such, "Permission Denied".

now I know if I launched it with sudo from the terminal it would probably fix it, but I also know there should be a way to not need to go through that as well.

So I'd like some help with this, probably a simple fix.

Also a second question I had is this: Are the only programs compatible with Tiny Core the ones in the extensions app install menu or can I download generic tar files and install them with success?

Thanks guys, look forward to the reply.

P.S. I did Google this issue prior to posting as well as searched your forums, I could have just missed it, don't know. Thanks for the help this is my first time posting and using Tiny Core Linux as opposed to Ubuntu and some Fedora.

[Rich]

Hi RSims
The /home directory is owned by root, so you need sudo to create a directory there. You should create those
download folders under  /home/tc/. The /home directory is where the user directories are placed, and  tc  is
the default user.
As far as installing generic tars, see the Wiki section on creating extensions.

[RSims]

Ah I see, so tc is the default Home folder and Home is the Root folder, got it. I'll look at the wiki, thanks for the tip!

[Lee]

Ah I see, so tc is the default Home folder and Home is the Root folder, got it. I'll look at the wiki, thanks for the tip!

Hmmm... getting the terminology right is important, especially since the forum is frequented by users of varying degrees of linux experience and varying degrees of proficiency in the English language.

The root directory is    /

The home directory of the default user ("tc") is   /home/tc

/home   is the "parent" directory of /home/tc  and is also a subdirectory of   /

/home/tc   should be owned by the user and group tc:staff and any data and or subdirectories you create should (generally) be kept inside of it.

/home   should be owned by the user root and probably the group root as well - On my currently running Core 4.5.4 system, /home is owned by tc:staff but I suspect that's an error of my own making.  I'll reboot with "base norestore" to check that out and post an update.

EDIT 20120606 1556:  As I suspected, /home is owned by root:root as is everything else in the root directory except for /opt, which is owned by root:staff.

Note that directory names are case-sensitive.

I suppose we're getting a little off topic for "TCB Q&A" as this is basic linux stuff.

[RSims]

Sorry, was comparing it to Ubuntu where I have a home folder for all my stuff then a separate root folder. Didn't mean to possibly confuse anyone. Thanks for the info.