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**oshunluvr** · Dec 16, 2018, 09:43 AM

Well, since this is linux there are several ways to do this. Which is the best depends on your security needs. The simplest and least safe is to have a directory that has wide-open permissions: drwxrwxrwx. In about 30 seconds at least 5 people will jump on this thread and spit out a dozen reasons why this is a bad idea, but like I said it's your computer and only you know the level of security you need.

Here's how I do it:

Add all your users to the "users" group so you have a common group:

sudo usermod -a -G users <username>

Then make a folder for sharing (use whatever name you want for it) and allow all users in the "users" group to access it:

sudo mkdir /shared
sudo chown :users /shared
sudo chmod g+ws /shared

The "+ws" in chmod gives the group members write access to, and more importantly, forces any files or folders created in it to also belong to the "users" group instead of the primary group. That way all your "users" members are able to access all others files.

The final step is to have each user create a symlink to the shared folder using their "Public" folder (assuming it's empty at this point).

ln -s /shared ~/Public

The only downside to this method I'm aware of is your brother will be able to delete as well as add files and folders to Public. If you don't want him to be able to add/delete files and folders, restrict the group to read-only and make yourself the owner of the folder so you can add/delete files. The advantage of this method vs. some others is when you add new users, they can "join the party."

Another method would be to simply link your Music folder to your brother's home Music folder thus allowing him to play your music but not add or delete anything to it. He wouldn't be able to save his own music in there either using this method.

**oshunluvr** · Dec 16, 2018, 09:52 AM

BTW, you might consider a second drive (if your system has room) to use as a backup device. This is usually cheaper and easier than an external device unless you need the mobility for the backup.

Also, just some FYI;

There's no reason to have a separate /boot partition unless you're using hardware or MDADM RAID or LVM.
18.10 will be end-of-life in 9 months. A lot of folks new to Linux are better off sticking to an LTS (log term support) release like 18.04 because you're not upgrading in six months.

**woodsmoke** · Dec 21, 2018, 12:44 AM

Hi
I fell bad that you had the problem but please allow me to say that i had EXACTLY the same problem years ago

I am going to gingerly suggest that before you do anything at all with the drive that you download knoppix and put it on a DVD ...NOT a usb and unplug the drive, run Knoppix, plug the drive back in and Knoppix will see it as a "storage drive", use the file search functions on Knoppix there are several, to look for your files, you really should be able to find them if the drive is able to be spun up.

If you find them or do not find them purchase a HUGE usb and ALWAYS store your stuff on the USB, always, without fail.

Don't try to do any kind of fancy backup or anything like that, just drag the files onto the usb using split screen and have done with it.

I do not keep ANYTHYING on my working hard drive except for "current stuff" like the latest lectures and tests for a class but that also is on the USB in a file that I call "current" and date it.

Anything that i have not accessed in say a month or so is COPIED to an external usb Hard Drive, I used to have a lot of small drives from back in the day but now everything is on one huge drive.

This drive is kept attached to the work machine but I also have an indentical huge drive that i purchased at the same time that is only plugged in when files are moved "through the system so both drives have the same stuff but the second one is not connected to the work machine except when copying stuff to the first drive.

Paranoid?

Thare are those who would say that but I have pictures on the external drives that were taken with a Sony Mavica using the old floppy system.

I started dong this backup routine when I had a hard drive that had file for a book on it that...CAUGHT FIRE... it was in one of those "compact" computers from a decade or more ago that would "go on a shelf".

So, a lot of trouble but I really do not worry if a drive goes south an y more.

woodjustsayin'smoke

**fatbloke** · Dec 22, 2018, 05:49 AM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

Well, since this is linux there are several ways to do this. Which is the best depends on your security needs. The simplest and least safe is to have a directory that has wide-open permissions: drwxrwxrwx. In about 30 seconds at least 5 people will jump on this thread and spit out a dozen reasons why this is a bad idea, but like I said it's your computer and only you know the level of security you need.

Here's how I do it:

Add all your users to the "users" group so you have a common group:

sudo usermod -a -G users <username>

Then make a folder for sharing (use whatever name you want for it) and allow all users in the "users" group to access it:

sudo mkdir /shared
sudo chown :users /shared
sudo chmod g+ws /shared

The "+ws" in chmod gives the group members write access to, and more importantly, forces any files or folders created in it to also belong to the "users" group instead of the primary group. That way all your "users" members are able to access all others files.

The final step is to have each user create a symlink to the shared folder using their "Public" folder (assuming it's empty at this point).

ln -s /shared ~/Public

The only downside to this method I'm aware of is your brother will be able to delete as well as add files and folders to Public. If you don't want him to be able to add/delete files and folders, restrict the group to read-only and make yourself the owner of the folder so you can add/delete files. The advantage of this method vs. some others is when you add new users, they can "join the party."

Another method would be to simply link your Music folder to your brother's home Music folder thus allowing him to play your music but not add or delete anything to it. He wouldn't be able to save his own music in there either using this method.

Thank you for the response. I've done some reading since I posted the "Q", and figured that mostly it would come down to a permissions thing. I'm struggling to make my mind up about where to put a folder for the music. The only two users are me and my "erindoors" - I listen to mine in the PC while I'm doing something, whereas she likes to just have it there as the main location for her music that we copy to her mp3 player (I generally rip mine in .flac format, her's we tend to rip as .ogg as it doesn't matter about file size so much for mine and I prefer the lossless nature of it while she just worries about the number of tracks she can get onto her mp3 player).

Anyway, what's confusing me, is that to have just something like a /music type directory, surely for us both to get to it (presuming it's on the system hard drive), it would need to be part of the root filesystem or we'd need a "user" called music ? I may be confusing things as while I'm not new to linux systems, I'm more user than administrator (that old adage, "I don't care how it works, I just want it to work").

I'm now supposing that it may just be easier to sort out an external hard drive of some sort (most likely would be to "splash the cash" at an extra SSD). And just leave it connected so that generally it mounts at boot, but so that if I do need to do anything apart from move music to and from it, the system player will still know where to look for it and if anything I do might mess things up, I can just unplug it...

**fatbloke** · Dec 22, 2018, 06:04 AM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

BTW, you might consider a second drive (if your system has room) to use as a backup device. This is usually cheaper and easier than an external device unless you need the mobility for the backup.

Also, just some FYI;

There's no reason to have a separate /boot partition unless you're using hardware or MDADM RAID or LVM.
18.10 will be end-of-life in 9 months. A lot of folks new to Linux are better off sticking to an LTS (log term support) release like 18.04 because you're not upgrading in six months.

I'm thinking along the lines of a separate external drive, not really for portability, but so that I can just keep the music and any other stuff we want/need to keep and that if anything happens it's easier to unplug it from the system to prevent it's loss.

I certainly don't have the patience to do that with an internal drive.

As for needing the /boot part, I understand that normally that wouldn't be needed but my brother used that method as the system has some odd quirks from the UEFI thing and needing it to be allowed to do "legacy" boot - I'm trying to recall what he said about why it was the best/easiest answer at the time (basically even with the "legacy boot" thing switched on, it wouldn't boot the DVD I'd put the Kubuntu 18.10 on - the /boot option was a compromise ).

I'm not fazed about when 18.10 becomes "end of life". Up until now, I've happily just done a full dist-upgrade when the newer "normal" version comes out - likely just lucky but those haven't been a problem doing that so far - but I'm guessing I'll have to wait and see how it goes when the next upgrade comes out...

**fatbloke** · Dec 22, 2018, 06:22 AM

Originally posted by woodsmoke View Post

Hi
I fell bad that you had the problem but please allow me to say that i had EXACTLY the same problem years ago

I am going to gingerly suggest that before you do anything at all with the drive that you download knoppix and put it on a DVD ...NOT a usb and unplug the drive, run Knoppix, plug the drive back in and Knoppix will see it as a "storage drive", use the file search functions on Knoppix there are several, to look for your files, you really should be able to find them if the drive is able to be spun up.

If you find them or do not find them purchase a HUGE usb and ALWAYS store your stuff on the USB, always, without fail.

Don't try to do any kind of fancy backup or anything like that, just drag the files onto the usb using split screen and have done with it.

I do not keep ANYTHYING on my working hard drive except for "current stuff" like the latest lectures and tests for a class but that also is on the USB in a file that I call "current" and date it.

Anything that i have not accessed in say a month or so is COPIED to an external usb Hard Drive, I used to have a lot of small drives from back in the day but now everything is on one huge drive.

This drive is kept attached to the work machine but I also have an indentical huge drive that i purchased at the same time that is only plugged in when files are moved "through the system so both drives have the same stuff but the second one is not connected to the work machine except when copying stuff to the first drive.

Paranoid?

Thare are those who would say that but I have pictures on the external drives that were taken with a Sony Mavica using the old floppy system.

I started dong this backup routine when I had a hard drive that had file for a book on it that...CAUGHT FIRE... it was in one of those "compact" computers from a decade or more ago that would "go on a shelf".

So, a lot of trouble but I really do not worry if a drive goes south an y more.

woodjustsayin'smoke

Thanks for the reply.

HA knoppix ! Damn I'd forgotten about that distro. I used to have it installed onto a system when I was still routinely meddling with which distro I wanted to try etc. And yes, had a few different ones

Sorting out backups etc, is one of those things on a "ToDo" list and now my procrastination has caught me out, not just with pictures etc, but the music files I allude to above.

I sort of started looking into it before but whatever it was that I did got forgotten about - now, through necessity more than anything else, I want to sort this finally. I don't know of the best way to sort it - though I'd guess if you read my replies above to oshunluvr, you'll see that I am indeed leaning toward an external drive (it'd be mostly for the music, but it could also be useful to be a place for all data file backups.

It's just something that I haven't really looked into properly or in depth, to understand how it works, let alone what, if any, kit I need to accomplish it...

Security and/or paranoia aren't the driver behind this, just not loosing the music once I've got it all ripped again. Plus, the fact you've worked out how to keep a back up going for even old files etc, is brilliant. It's something I should have got sorted years ago...

In truth, this is the first time I've had drive issues. I don't generally bother about warnings from "normal" software, but the BIOS warning that said about imminent possible HDD failure on the old PC "hit a cord".

Since we bought that one, lots has changed and it's those changes that I'm having to discover and learn how to get round them...

I'm not intending going OTT with this, and if needs be, I'll happily have our music in a directory in the /home of each user, but I still need to have somewhere to keep the original ripped files with enough permissions so that I don't lose them if the main PC has an issue. Equally if the music is on both /home and also on an external drive, I should be able to recover it from either direction (wondering if I can sort an extra "save" option so that when I or she gets new CD's etc, then I can just rip them and save them to the user side in /home but they also get saved to the main archive on the external)...

**oshunluvr** · Dec 22, 2018, 07:07 AM

AFAIK, there's zero connection between UEFI boot vs. legacy boot and a boot partition. I boot legacy only as I keep Windows locked safely inside a virtual machine where it can do no harm. Boot partitions are usually used when the main file system is unreadable by the boot manager at initial bootstrapping. If you're using full disk encryption or RAID or a file system that's exotic or unsupported by the kernel (like ZFS), then you need a boot partition. EFI requires an EFI partition (type EF00) and GRUB requires a BIOS boot partition (type EF02) if you're not using EFI and are using a GPT formatted disk. If your brother is aware of something I'm not, I'd like to hear it. Regardless - this is a moot discussion and only for intellectual debate. As long as your system works, don't muck about with it - that's my motto.

To the music, I would really be against the idea of an additional user. This would not enhance your access or ability to share and would add a level of complexity. BTW, I too rip only to flac.

To recap my first suggestion: a special group you are both members of would allow, with proper permissions, access to a shared folder and files. Really, just a few commands and this will be in play. You could have two folders, one for ogg and one for flac if you wish.

Briefly reading your use descriptions above it seems - given enough drive space, that two separate-but-equal storage places might be of use. What if you had all the music in your music folder as flac and she had all the music in her music folder as ogg? This would simply access considerably. Here's the idea:

You are responsible to rip music to flac and put it in your /music folder.
You backup your music folder onto the portable backup drive (could be automated with a script). No need to backup the ogg files. You can recreate them if needed.
You have a script that converts the contents of your music folder into ogg and puts it into her music folder
When you add music to your folder, you either run the script manually (from a Dolphin servicemenu if you prefer GUI usage) or the script runs and adds the music to her folder automatically (using cron or inotify)

The hardest part would be creating the scripts, but nothing here is rocket science. I'm a big proponent of letting the system do the work for you. Isn't that why we have computers in the first place?

Using an external drive for backups is always a good idea. You can even automate backing up and trigger it by just plugging in the drive.

Really, what you need to focus on first is what you'd like to have your system do for you - the wildest dream scenario. If you run into a roadblock you can back down from your dream scenario a bit, but shoot for the stars and don't limit your ideas.

**woodsmoke** · Dec 22, 2018, 08:45 PM

Fatbloke

a) whatever Oshunlover says is gospel, rely on it.

b) please consider the concept of "optimal path" or "path of least resistance".

This person wants this, that person wants that, you what you want.

Just what is it that YOu ...spend the MOST amount of time doing "this or that" and "for whom".

"Automated this and automated that" sound very wunnnerful in the wunnerful world of command line Linux"

But... just WHAT IS IT that you "want / need " to do?

If it takes "this amount of time to "rip" the original song"

and then it takes "that amount of time" to translate to "ogg" or "flac" just HOW MUCH TIME is involved in "each step"

going back to my original thing about how i do things.

If it takes "this amount of time to rip" that is the first choke point.

Then it take another amount of time to convert to FLAC, ( this may be your original rip but the original rip is not important).l. it will then take "another amount of time" TO RIP TO THIS OR TO THAT"

How much actual time is involved in ..."moving stuff" to the "partition". ?

a couple of minutes, ten minutes ...a half hour...

Me...im kinda stupid, I just keep things simple...

if I had to "make music" or whatever for "two people", to me...the critical juncture is...ME!

I make the stuff for ME on MY hard drive... that is the first bifurcation in the paths...

"converting" is chump change..

Depending on the size of YOUR hard drive...

a) do all the initial work on YOUR hard drive...

b) convert on your hard drive for person A , plug in a usb, split screens and drag to that persons usb...
c ) convert on your hard drive for person B , plug in a usb, split screens and drag to that persons usb...

d) MOVE the files to "their place" whaerever it is...

E) YOU still have all of the files...you can move them to another usb or another external hard drive...

It seems to me that you need to
a) spend a small amount of money or have external persons spend a small amount of money
b) determine the optimal path to move file to them.
c) determine which files need are "critical" and those need to be backed up in maybe several ways.

woodjustsomethoughtssmoke

**fatbloke** · Dec 28, 2018, 06:25 AM

Wow! Your kind and excellent suggestions are exposing my personal shortcomings...

Procrastination, and when faced with choice, the inability to make a decision...😆👍

First I just figured that I could make a "joint" directory for all our music. That way, it should be straightforward to just re-rip the CD's to one location and set both users so that whether we open a music player or plug in her MP3 player to be able to drag/drop the tracks she wants on it.

I'm suspecting that my idea was too simplistic.

To explain where my understanding is at...

So a "combined" /music type idea won't work, because that would need the place to be part of the root file system ?

Ok, so then (again, as I understand it) it can't just be a directory in the /home area, because it would see /home/music as like an extra user ?

I was hoping to be able to sit there shoving CD's in and a few clicks and a wait so I could just use play lists for us to pick out the tracks we like/want (she doesn't like much of my music but there's a few of hers that we both like etc).

The idea was, that the one location would make it easier to keep a backup, so that if either I managed to screw things up (less likely now as we've got rid of l the windows stuff completely) or something failed (more likely because I tend to use the PC until it's basically falling apart around me) then I "should" (in theory) just be able to copy back from the backup ? We I presume that should be possible.

Both of you have been brilliant in trying to explain how I need to proceed, but I'm sorry to say that mostly it's going straight over my head (and making me very frustrated with myself for my own stupidity)...

Perhaps I should just rip the CD's to each of our accounts by genre, then work out how to back them up to an external location ? But then, isn't there still a permissions issue i.e. tracks from her account would be "owned" by her and tracks from mine, by me ?

Or is it that my stupidity is confusing me about how "permissions" work ?

**fatbloke** · Dec 28, 2018, 06:29 AM

Oh and if I have to spend a bit to achieve the best solution, it shouldn't be a problem. I know I'm gonna have to get an external drive to keep the backup on (and I'm presuming that an external SSD would be best/quickest?)...

**oshunluvr** · Dec 28, 2018, 09:10 AM