[SOLVED] No write access to $HOME directory

[notyourbuddy]

~4th day using Linux and its kicking my ass.

Attempting to login results in:

The following installation problem was detected while trying to start KDE:

No write access to $HOME directory (/home/chris).

KDE is unable to start

Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation.

Then I get kicked back to the login screen. Lovely.

I do however seem to be able to log into my account via "Console Only" mode just fine from the login screen and browse around via a nice full screen Terminal. But yeah... no idea what to do now. Honestly, I don't even know how to quit this "Console" session and get back to the graphical display login

Below is the last things I did + other stuff before this error occurred.

- I never touched any file permission settings.
- I have plenty of disk space.
- Pretty much a fresh install of Natty Narwhal.
- I've had no problems accessing my home directory before now (over the course of many computer restarts).

Last things I did before this occurred:
- Veetle.com in Rekonq
- Download Linux version of Veetle player to $Home/chris/Downloads
- Installed the .sh file via Terminal (successfully... supposedly... although browser didn't recognize that it was installed)
- Downloaded Chromium
- Attempted to install the .sh again (successfully... supposedly... Chromium didn't recognize it either)
- Computer restart.
- Welcome to Hell

[wizard10000]

Re: No write access to $HOME directory

Do this from a terminal login -

sudo chown -R chris:chris /home/chris

All fixed

[notyourbuddy]

Re: No write access to $HOME directory

Hello again Mr. Wizard! Indeed that did fix'er right up. Thanks

[wizard10000]

Re: [SOLVED] No write access to $HOME directory

Glad to help. Wonder what goobered up the file permissions in the first place?

[dibl]

Re: [SOLVED] No write access to $HOME directory

- I never touched any file permission settings.

You didn't do it deliberately, you did it accidentally. Probably when installing the player script. When you use the "sudo" command prefix, and you're working at the /home/chris directory, you are in fact operating as root. If the "sudo" command you use does any operation at all on files or subdirectories in your home folder, such as installing some media player, you are screwed (as you now know).

Therefore, best not to be installing anything as "sudo" or root in your user's home folder.

[notyourbuddy]

Re: [SOLVED] No write access to $HOME directory

You didn't do it deliberately, you did it accidentally. Probably when installing the player script. When you use the "sudo" command prefix, and you're working at the /home/chris directory, you are in fact operating as root. If the "sudo" command you use does any operation at all on files or subdirectories in your home folder, such as installing some media player, you are screwed (as you now know).

Therefore, best not to be installing anything as "sudo" or root in your user's home folder.

Mhm.. that sounds like me alright. I initially installed the player from $Home/chris/Downloads without sudo... it installed fine, but when it didn't work in my browser I kinda got confused and thought maybe trying again but with sudo for higher permission would maybe do something. And oh boy did it do something!

[oshunluvr]

Re: No write access to $HOME directory

First: To get from terminal mode back to graphical mode: ALT-F7 (sometimes F8)

Usually the inability to log in is caused by root owning critical files in your home or a full home partition.

Switch to ALT-F1, log in, and type

df -h

and verify you have space remaining on / or /home (if you use a separate partition for /home). Once you've pasted that test, type:

find ~/ -uid 0

This should list all files in your home owned by root. Change them to your ownership and try logging in again. For this command, UID = Your user name, GID = your primary group name (usually same as UID), FILENAME = full path to target file.

(for each file) sudo chown UID:GID FILENAME

When all done, type:

sudo service kdm restart

This will take you back to the log in by restarting the log in manager.

[oshunluvr]

Re: [SOLVED] No write access to $HOME directory

Oops, my reply was late - didn't click "Post" and went to have breakfast.

Since we're on the topic: One way you can avoid this happening again is to be sure to use "sudo" only for text/terminal applications and "kdesudo" for GUI applications.