USB screw ups

[GregM]

Nothing I can find

[GregM]

I just did a fresh install of 18.04 on a spare hard drive I have and everything works just fine.
So it's not the hardware. That's a good thing.

[Qqmike]

Interesting. So, instead of looking for a BIOS setting, the question remains: what "setting" in Kubuntu controls this stuff?

[GregM]

Indeed!

[GregM]

I'm leaving tomorrow to go fetch the last load of household stuff (from WA) in our big move to NM.
So I won't be on the computer for the next week or so, after today.

Maybe the computer gnomes will come buy and fix it while I'm gone.

[GregM]

Back now permanently.
The computer gnomes have not come by yet.

Is there a way to change permissions from "root" to me?

[GregM]

For some reason my computer does not think I am the owner and so it will not allow me to change permissions?
How do I tell it that yes, I am the owner?

[SpecialEd]

sudo chown $USER:$USER /media/<username>/<mountpoint>

[GregM]

So
sudo chown $USER:$USER /media/<username>/<mountpoint>
would be
sudo chown $greg:$greg /media/greg/8gb
?

[GregM]

Tried
sudo chown $greg:$greg /media/greg/8gb
and
sudo chown $greg:$greg /media/greg/

neither had an effect

[GregM]

I'm about ready to reformat and start over.
This is crazy

[SpecialEd]

Use command lsblk to show your path/mount point.

[oshunluvr]

I'm about ready to reformat and start over.
This is crazy

No need to do that and it's not crazy. There's no need to change this. If you reinstall, it's going to be the same because it's that way by design. You can't change it because it's permissions and ownership are "locked" and you're not using the correct command to unlock it first.

It is locked because you (you the empirical user, not specifically you Greg) are not supposed to be mucking about in the media folder. It's done that way to keep other users from accessing your removable devices. When you insert a device root (via UDEV) mounts the device in your /media/greg folder with permission that you can access.

Here's what my /media folder looks like with nothing mounted:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#54FF54][B]stuart@office[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]:[/COLOR][COLOR=#5454FF][B]~[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]$ ll /media[/COLOR]
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  1 root root  12 Nov  9 08:26 [COLOR=#5454FF][B].[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR]
drwxr-xr-x  1 root root 268 Nov 23 08:50 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]..[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR]
drwxr-x---+ 1 root root   0 Dec  2 19:45 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]stuart[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR][/FONT]

(NOTE: I believe this user folder under /media is created when you log in. Thus, multiple users could have a folder in there at the same time if a second "session" is created)

Clearly, root owns the stuart folder and the zero after "root root" shows us nothing is in the stuart folder. Now with a device inserted and mounted, we see:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#54FF54][B]stuart@office[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]:[/COLOR][COLOR=#5454FF][B]~[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]$ ll /media/[/COLOR]
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  1 root root  12 Nov  9 08:26 [COLOR=#5454FF][B].[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR]
drwxr-xr-x  1 root root 268 Nov 23 08:50 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]..[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR]
drwxr-x---+ 1 root root  22 Dec 14 15:59 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]stuart[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR][/FONT]

The zero has changed to 22, indicating some stuff is under stuart now, and here it is:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#54FF54][B]stuart@office[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]:[/COLOR][COLOR=#5454FF][B]~[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]$ ll /media/stuart/[/COLOR]
total 4
drwxr-x---+ 1 root   root     22 Dec 14 15:59  [COLOR=#5454FF][B].[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR]
drwxr-xr-x  1 root   root     12 Nov  9 08:26  [COLOR=#5454FF][B]..[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR]
drwxrwxrwx  1 stuart stuart 4096 Dec 13 11:42 [COLOR=#1818b2]'Samsung USB'[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR][/FONT]

Notice the ownership and permissions of my thumb drive mount point are fully open to me. Thus, having /media/stuart restricted to only those in my group (which is only me by Ubuntu default) prevents others from accessing my devices while they're mounted there. I don't understand why you think you need to change this because it works fine (and is more secure) if you leave it alone, but anyway...

...the short answer as to why you can't change the folder the way you're trying is an "Access Control List" (ACL) is being used. The hint is the plus sign trailing the normal permissions list. Look at mine and see (I enlarged the plus sign):

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]drwxr-x---[SIZE=4][B]+[/B][/SIZE] 1 root root  22 Dec 14 15:59 [/COLOR][COLOR=#5454FF][B]stuart[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/[/COLOR][/FONT]

If you look at the ACL you'll see:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#54FF54][B]stuart@office[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]:[/COLOR][COLOR=#5454FF][B]~[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]$ getfacl /media/stuart    [/COLOR]
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: media/stuart
# owner: root
# group: root
[B]user::rwx
user:stuart:r-x[/B]
group::---
mask::r-x
other::---[/FONT]

So you can see that although root "owns" the folder, I have been given access through the ACL.

To further general ACL knowledge and possibly to give you a better understanding of what you're encountering: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-manage-acls-on-linux

If you really, really, REALLY want to continue mucking about, go right ahead - it's your system. However, at least generally, changing things in your linux install basically just because you don't like the way it looks is a bad idea IMO. I know because I've done numerous re-installs over the last 20 years that I've used linux for blindly taking the same sort of actions.

My advice, if you want it, is ask yourself why you're doing something before finding out how to do it, and then only act when your understanding is clear and your reasons justified.

[Snowhog]

So
sudo chown $USER:$USER /media/<username>/<mountpoint>
would be
sudo chown $greg:$greg /media/greg/8gb
?

No. $USER is an environment variable that translates to the current logged in user; you. If you specify your login name directly, don't put a $ in front of it. Incorrect: $greg Correct: greg

[GregM]

Use command lsblk to show your path/mount point.

greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:~$ lsblk

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 83.9G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 83.9G 0 part /
sdb 8:16 1 7.3G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 1 7.3G 0 part /media/greg/8GB
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:~$