I don't know how Dell ships their pre-installed systems, but I do know that the 'alternate' install of Ubuntu will ask the user to create a default administrator account (including username and password) at first boot. I am only assuming that Dell uses this option. If they do and you created that first account you have no problem.

Ubuntu uses the sudoers list to allow the default user acces to administrative tasks/applications. When attempting to use an administration application and it asks you for your password, enter your regular user password. This only works provided the account you are using is set up as an 'administrator' and not a 'regular user' account.

Do you have a regular user account? Have you tried to type in your own username when you try to use an administration function like Synaptic (System - Package Manager) or when you use sudo from the command line?

When I received my laptop from Dell, I was never prompted for an administrator username and password.  I have no way knowing what Dell did.

Hi,

I do have my own username and password.  Idid some reading and found that one rarely needs to sign in as root.

When I turn on my laptop, I receive the GUI login screen.  I enter my username and password and I am at my desktop.

There are two other users that were created.  I have a file in a directory which is in my home.  I need to place this file into a directory owned by another user.

When I try to copy the file from mine to theirs, I am unable because I do not have permissions for their directory.

How does one assign permissions on file/folders from one the owner to another?

This whole user administration is confusing.

I tried logging with the user who owns the directory and I get a message saying that the account has expired.  How do I avoid this?  Can I re-create this user without having the account expire?

Now, when I go to a terminal window, I type ls for my account and do not see the directories in File System.  I then try to login as another user, I type ls for that account and nothing appears.  I guess this means the directory is empty.  But, how can it be empty when I go to /home/ it says that this user is the owner?  Shouldn't this directory appear under their account when I type ls.

Are you able to get into Ubuntu at all or do you just get a log-in screen?  Since Dell installed Ubuntu, they may have set up a "default Admin" ID and you might have missed it in the documentation. If you can get into Ubuntu, then you can click on "System", scroll down to "Groups ... " and click on that. Then you should be able to see the users Dell set up. You can check to see who has what authority. I suspect Dell should have set up your system with Admin authority so you can add new users and perform certain functions such as  "sudo" which, BTW, requires Admin authority and is issued from a "Terminal" command line. 

If you cannot get into Ubuntu at all and cannot find what Dell assigned as the "admin ID" and password, then you will have to contact Dell. Alternatively, you can try to download (or request)  the Ubuntu ISO CD and re-install it yourself. However, Dell may have installed some of its own drivers for networking and other functions. In that case, you need to contact Dell support

One final point. When you install Ubuntu, it prompts you for a userid (for Admin purposes) and a password. This is to allow you to assign new users and perform other Admin type functions such as Updating, Add/Remove applications, running the Synaptic Package Manager, Connecting to a wireless network and other types of functions. 

I have found that Ubuntu is a fairly nice system and one that should handle many of your basic functions without problems. However, it is not quite as polished as Windows as far as device support and a few other items (printing is a possibility, depending upon your printer). If you have no problem navigating around all the Windows functions, then you should not have to many problems with Ubuntu. Currently, more companies support WIndows than Linux (Ubuntu) systems. However, as Ubuntu keeps improving and becomes more popular, they (or the Open Source community) will eventually provide more support.

"I do have my own username and password. Idid some reading and found that one rarely needs to sign in as root."

"When I try to copy the file from mine to theirs, I am unable because I do not have permissions for their directory."

This would normally be a good thing right? Am I correct in assuming that what you want to know is how to get that access?

"How does one assign permissions on file/folders from one the owner to another?"

File permissions, the quick and easy way, work like this....

There are three aspects to file permissions in Linux

The Owner
The actual account which owns this file or folder.

The Group
Like creating a user, you can create a group and add select users to it. If you set the group ownership to that group, all the users of the group have access as determined by the permission levels.

The Permission Levels
There are 3 options and 3 levels of access.Your three options are Read/Write, Read Only, or No Access. Your 3 levels of access are (as above), The Owner, The Group and everyone else.

I'll show you what those mean with an example.

Open your home folder (Click on "Places" - "Home" and create a new directory called 'myfiles' (Right click, "Create Folder").

We're going to take a side step for a minute.

First, you'll need to create a new group and this is where you'll get to use the not-really-"root" password.

Click on "System" then "Users and Groups".

Now click on the "Unlock" button at the bottom beside the "close" button.

The computer will ask you for a password.You'll notice that it's actually asking for your account password, not the missing root password. Just type in your regular password. (If you run into a problem here, let me know).

Once you're past that hurdle, you can now click on "Manage Groups".

You're now in the "Groups Settings" window. You'll see a group there called "users". Click on that once.

Now click on "Properties" to change the group properties.

You don't need to change the group ID. 100 is perfectly fine.

You'll also see a set of users for your computer including one called "root" - Do not add "root". Click on the users you want to add to your "users" group and click on "OK". (In the future, You can create even more groups this way, like 'friends' or 'gaming', and make different combinations of users with access to limited other folders etc... But I digress....)

You should be back to the Groups Settings window. Click on "Close" to back out of that window.

You can also use this "Users Settings" window to add or delete any users you would like (OR change their passwords!)

Before you can see the changes that you have made to the new groups, you'll need to log out of your account and then log back in again.

Go back to the "myfiles" folder you created earlier.

Right click on that folder and select 'properties'.

At the top of the properties window there is a tab that will say 'Permissions'.

You'll notice that the owner is set to your account.The Group is also set to your account.

If you change the owner, you can change the owner of the folder. BUT WAIT! If you change the owner, you won't have access to that folder anymore will you?

Remember "The Group" you created earlier? See where this is going?

If you set the group to "users" - all of the users you added to the 'user' group will now have access to that folder as determined by the Folder Access Level that you're about to set. You can also set the level of access for the files in the folder.

There you go! Other users can now copy files into a folder you have access to and you can now copy files you want them to have access to in your 'myfiles' folder.

You can set file access on individual files too! Just right click on the file and select 'Properties' - just like you did here.

Every user account can be setup with a 'myfiles' folder - only if you want to keep it a little more organized, you might want to consider renaming each folder to include a unique name that includes the username in it.

Also, keep in mind that your home folder is kind of the My Documents folder in Windows. It's not at the root of the directory structure. Your Home folder is actually /home/username So your newly created file is actually at /home/username/myfiles

The rest of the users files are at

/home/user1
/home/user2
/home/user3
etc....

There is a way to set this up automatically for every user you add, but that's only necessary if you plan on adding more than 10 or so user accounts. (In case anyone else is curious, See /etc/skel for more info).

Now about that file "push" ...

from the command line try this.... (Substitute 'username' for the username of the user's account you want to push a file to). 

sudo mkdir /home/username/myfiles

sudo chown username /home/username/myfiles

sudo chgrp users /home/username/myfiles

sudo chmod 774 /home/username/myfiles

Or, if you're more comfortable with a GUI, you can launch Nautilus as "root" by running the command

sudo nautilus

Happy file pushing!

It sounds to me like oracle (which I have very very little experience with) requires it's own user account and more than likely group as well. So create the user account first, that will automatically create the group and the folder you need. 

Hi,

Thank you for the example.  I will give it a try.

As for needing to be in the "home" directory which is owned by the non-existent "root"; Oracle requires that the product be installed in a home directory.  The syntax used is /home/oracle. 

The problem occurred when I downloaded the zip file, the file was saved to my Desktop.  The download wouldn't let me choose a directory.  So, I needed to move the zip file to the /home/oracle directory so I can do what I need to do.  In trying to copy, I was prompted with an error message that I do not have permissions to /home.

So, in order for me to install this software, I need to have access to /home.

You are correct.  Oracle requires you to create a user typically called oracle.  And the "oracle" user will need to belong to a group called "dba".

Before the actual installation, there's a bunch of commands that you need to run from a terminal window - only.  One of those commands has to do with creating the "oracle" user and "dba" group.  Yet, when I try to log into Ubuntu with the "oracle" user; it tells me the user account is expired and won't let me in.

Yet again, when I log in as myself and I go to Users and Groups; the "oracle" user appears in the list.

I am having a tough time connecting the dots with all this.  I wish I could find some documentation that explains how creating a user via terminal and creating a user via GUI (Users and Groups) are connected.  Why would the "oracle" user work only in terminal and not in GUI.  Yet, my username works in both places using the same password.

This is all confusing.