Re: Trying to fix a stupid mistake

[Michael Vanecek <mike mjv com>]

Back when I was first starting out with Linux I have gone through
several re-installs to correct my mistakes. After a while, you'll learn
not to make those mistakes or how to correct those mistakes. In your
case, it would be easier to scrap your installation and start over from
scratch - repartion and reformat and reinstall. Hopefully you'll take it
as a learning experience rather than a setback. Once installed - only
use the computer as a user and not as root - excepting when you need to
edit certain configuration files or install software and even then only
dip into root as su - su then password in an xterm, then when the task
is complete return to normal user - Ctrl-D. Your problem illustrates
exactly why Linux and Unix in general has adopted a permissions based
system of administration - users can't really do critical damage to the
system and all the power is relegated to root.

Good luck and welcome to the Jungle...

Mike

Rooty D'Qt wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am a linux newbie and, in my infinite wisdom (don't
> laugh anybody) I decided to change ALL of the
> permissions on my machine. Yes, I did say all.
> It took me a day or two to figure out how to fix
> whatever I'd done, and now I can do anything I need to
> from the command line. GNOME sorta loads... I can get
> just past the login screen, where I am faced with a
> sea of blue.
> When I ran linuxconf to see if there were any other
> file permissions to be changed, nothing came up.
> However, there has to be something I haven't done, or
> GNOME would work.
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas?