I am now unable to `su -' from user knoppix.

[rbivins]

So, I'm trying different things to fix my grub installation and I managed to make my knoppix and windows 2k unbootable.

That was a fine time to discover that I had an incomplete burn of the knoppix CD (I must have given away the good burn I made). So the computer was basically hosed.

First I booted from my win2k installation CD and issued a fixmbr from the recovery console, which got my windows back. And I tried to revocer my knoppix from the broken CD. Bad idea.

When I finally got another good burn made and got my knoppix working again I found that I could no loger successfully su to root while logged in as knoppix. I can still log-in as root.

Also, none of the KDE popup windows that prompt for the root password succeed either, and the checkbox to "keep password" is now missing (like when I try to change the time, or some other root level activity).

I figure that this is a permissions issue, since somehow in the above process all the files on my system managed to get owned by knoppix:knoppix instead of root.

I chowned root:root everything but /home/knoppix. That hasn't helped though. Is there a fix permissions script somewhere that I can use to get this thing working correctly?

Thanks in advance,
--Robert

[Dave_Bechtel]

--Yikes. Once you get global permissions screwed up, you have basically 2 choices:

1. Restore from a backup

2. Reinstall

--Otherwise you'll NEVER get things 100% back to the way they "should" be. Different things in /etc have to be owned by the proper IDs, or they don't work right.

--Trust me on this. Reinstalling in this case is much quicker and less painful than trying to fix permissions for TENS OF THOUSANDS of files.

So, I'm trying different things to fix my grub installation and I managed to make my knoppix and windows 2k unbootable.

That was a fine time to discover that I had an incomplete burn of the knoppix CD (I must have given away the good burn I made). So the computer was basically hosed.

First I booted from my win2k installation CD and issued a fixmbr from the recovery console, which got my windows back. And I tried to revocer my knoppix from the broken CD. Bad idea.

When I finally got another good burn made and got my knoppix working again I found that I could no loger successfully su to root while logged in as knoppix. I can still log-in as root.

Also, none of the KDE popup windows that prompt for the root password succeed either, and the checkbox to "keep password" is now missing (like when I try to change the time, or some other root level activity).

I figure that this is a permissions issue, since somehow in the above process all the files on my system managed to get owned by knoppix:knoppix instead of root.

I chowned root:root everything but /home/knoppix. That hasn't helped though. Is there a fix permissions script somewhere that I can use to get this thing working correctly?

Thanks in advance,
--Robert

[rbivins]

--Yikes. Once you get global permissions screwed up, you have basically 2 choices:

1. Restore from a backup

2. Reinstall

--Otherwise you'll NEVER get things 100% back to the way they "should" be. Different things in /etc have to be owned by the proper IDs, or they don't work right.

--Trust me on this. Reinstalling in this case is much quicker and less painful than trying to fix permissions for TENS OF THOUSANDS of files.

YIKES! Indeed!

Is there a way to re-install that doesn't blow away all the settings that I've spent hours setting? Not to mention all the apps I've installed since then.

Hmmm . . . not good.

Or, can I just pull all the /etc, /opt, /bin, /lib, /sbin, and /var from the CD or something?

Thanks,
--Robert

[Dave_Bechtel]

--I wouldn't mess around with it too much, if you don't want a subtly-broken system.

--If you want, you could tar up /etc and your /home dir somewhere and then run a 'diff' on the files afterward. But really, there's no easy way around it - even if you do that, you'll spend hours hand-editing things anyway.

--The only "good" way that I know of to recover fully from a situation like this, is to reinstall... Then BACKUP frequently. Backup when you have it running the way you like it; backup (at least partially) again when you tweak something and get good results; backup *yet again* right before you do apt-get upgrade or delete packages. And by all means, at **least** do a *weekly* full backup. (Sunday nights are good for this, as a suggestion.)

--With hard drive sizes going 'way beyond 40GB these days, a 2nd HD is pretty much essential. My rule of thumb is to have HD #2 == (or greater than) the HD that I use for OS and data; so there's plenty of room for Linux installs, cd-temp areas, and backup space. (My main 80GB HD is a Maxtor; the 2nd HD is an 80GB Seagate.)

--I usually keep at least 2 previous iterations of backup tarballs, unless the filesize is 8GB or more. Note - it might be worth considering for you to buy a dual-format DVD-burner now. The prices are coming down to $100 or less these days.

--In addition, I have a special 'bkpcrit' script which saves the absolutely-critical files to a 100MB Zip disk; it should show up on the board if you do a search for it.

--Yes, reinstalling is painful; but you're better off doing it in the long run, rather than having something break strangely later on because the permissions / ownership went bozotic.

YIKES! Indeed!

Is there a way to re-install that doesn't blow away all the settings that I've spent hours setting? Not to mention all the apps I've installed since then.

Hmmm . . . not good.

Or, can I just pull all the /etc, /opt, /bin, /lib, /sbin, and /var from the CD or something?

Thanks,
--Robert

[Stephen]

Not to mention all the apps I've installed since then.



Thanks,
--Robert

If dpkg is still working then you can get the list of installed packages by dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt save the file and when you reinstall use dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt and then dselect update followed by apt-get deslect-upgrade.

[Valhalla]

BEFORE YOU REINSTALL.....

look in your task bar by the clock...make sure your language is selected. The language effects the keyboard and is perhaps entering your password with a German keyboard or vice versa. I realize that this post may be too late for you but maybe it can help someone who finds this post in a keyword search in the future before they reinstall for nothing.