Mousepad

Hello all....

I've just managed to successfully load SKYPE onto my AAO and now I want to get the ICON onto the desktop.
I've opened up a terminal window and for my first attempt typed "sudo mousepad /home/usr/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml" (without the quotes). This then dumps me into another window with group-app.xml in the top left corner of the blue bar - and a red bar across the top of the edit screen with a "Warning you are using the root account - you may harm your system", but no code, just a blank screen.

I suspect there's another step I may need to carry out to display the file, but I don't know what it is - I'd be grateful for any advice or help on this one.

Many thanks

 

Hi, you've slightly mistyped usr instead of user. If you've got mousepad up but no file, that normally means you've slightly mistyped something. Try direct cut-and-paste (shift+ctrl+v to paste in terminal):

Code:

sudo mousepad /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml

 

Note too that as this file is in the /home/user directory, you shouldn't need to be root to edit it. You don't need the 'sudo'.

 

I've done it !

Many thanks for the help.

It turns out it was the "sudo" bit that caused me the problem - once I left that out I was able to get to the group-app.xml file and edit the appropriate line.

What kind of files reside in the Root area and will I ever have to edit them ??

(Please forgive me if this sounds a daft question, but this is all new to me and I've not had to edit these types of files before, However, it is quite liberating to know that you can go in a modify things yourself !)

 

It's not exactly a root area: the root user can own files anywhere - and if you copy a root-owned file into your own home directory it will remain owned by root unless you do something to change that. Practically, though, files in your home directory will generally be owned by you, and files which relate to the running of the main system and programs will be owned by root.

On the Aspire One, things are a little less clear cut as Acer have modified the usual Linux security model, but in principal you need root status to change anything which might break the system for users. Linux comes from multi-user environments, where no user should be able to see another users files without their agreement, and no-one but root should have the authority to change things which apply to all users. This doesn't stop you deleting all your own files by accident, of course, but in theory it should stop you damaging the system without having thought about it.

Root is a bit like Admin User on Windows,but more so!

It's not daft at all; if you're not used to Linux it's an important question.

In Linux, pretty well all configurations are in plain text files, which you can edit (as root, if necessary) to change the behaviour of programs - so it's all modifiable without anything magic like Windows registry changes!

 

David,

Many thanks for the explanation - it's a lot clearer now.

Coming from a "conventional" PC background (both Mac and Windows) the knowledge that you can go in and change files yourself to modify parameters on the AAO takes a bit of getting used to, but it's good to know it's possible. It's also very comforting to know that there are experts out there who are willing to share their knowledge to help other learn this process.

Nick