I'm running 17.2 and we have two user accounts - myself and my wife. I am the administrator. In my old windows system (7) I could copy a file to her account or put the file in a public folder where she could retrieve it. This does not work in 17.2 , it says "Error opening directory, permission denied".
Is there a way to give me that permission? I would rather copy files with the GUI file manager than using terminal.
Quick 2nd Question (I hope) - in 17.2 the desktop is listed under the home directory in the file manager. I could have sworn it was listed separately in 16 along with documents, download, pictures etc. Maybe I'm confusing it with my old Windows layout. Is there a way to make the desktop folder display on the left panel in file manager and not under home?
It is possible. But not in this Way before. Open Nautilus and choose the home Folder. There go with the Mouse Cursor to the Desktop Icon and click and hold it with the left Mouse-Key and move it to the left Side. Then You get and Desktop Entry on the left Side but only at the bottom:
As for sharing folders between users, this guide here should probably be what you're looking for. I don't have multiple users on my computer, so I can't test for you right now:
As a note, the public directory in your home directory is meant for sharing files, but isn't shared by default. A little searching tells me it was meant for a tool Ubuntu no longer installs by default, but using Applecheeks37's link's instructions on your and your wife's public folders will give you sort of local drop boxes for each other, if you'd prefer that over giving access to a directory that already has a use. (In the link Applecheeks provided, the instructions permanently share the Music folder. Using Public instead would let you share only the files you deliberately drop for each other.)
It didn't worked? You only have to move the Desktop Icon to the left. Then you see at the bottom the Option to add a new Bookmark. Simply move it to this:
When I drag it over to the left it just snaps back to the right. The best I could so was drag it to another folder like Videos, but that is of no use. Is a bookmark the same as a folder for my purposes? I was expecting to see the folder itself moved.
Unfortunately Applecheeks37 instructions did not work. I downloaded the users and groups software, followed the instructions exactly, applying them to the Public folder and even tried the Terminal commands. I then tried moving a file to my Public folder and signed on to wife's account, made sure she had the same permissions in the instructions. Nothing showed up in her Public folder.
Oh, nothing would show up in her public folder. The instructions above give her access to your public folder. She'd go there and fish it out, or you'd give yourself access to her public folder and drop it there for her. If you want a unified drop point, that's doable with symlinking. If you're interested we can get into that, too.
The proposed solution there only accounts for the regular file permission issue, whereby you would be able to access each other's Public folder, but it does not create a shared directory.
I think the simplest solution to this is to create a shared folder elsewhere that both of you can access. One way would be by creating a new, dedicated user for that purpose. This would keep thing relatively organized since it's user-generated content that belongs inside the /home directory (if this means nothing to you, it's not really important so don't worry about it).
Feel free to choose whatever name you want for the user named "shared_account", and replace user1 and user2 with the account names for you and your wife.
Next, you can create a symbolic link to your own user accounts.
Note that the second command here needs to run as sudo if you are the one doing it from your own account. If each one of you will run this for your own respective accounts, each can use simply ln -s /home/shared_acc /home/userX/Shared.
If you prefer, you can delete the Public folder and use that same name. You can now drag and drop this folder on the sidebar to have it as a shortcut:
This looks like it might work. I will try this tomorrow. I think I will delete the Public folder and recreate it. Placing it on the left side as a bookmark is a good idea. Rest assured I will have more questions as I go thru this.
Change the group ownership of the /shared directory to the shared group.
sudo chgrp shared /shared
Set Group Sticky Bit:
Set the group sticky bit for the shared folder to ensure files copied into it retain the group permissions.
sudo chmod g+s /shared
By following these steps, both users can access and modify files in the shared directory without needing to share their login credentials or grant anonymous access.
You read that correctly. That option is intended for sharing with other computers over the network, and specifically using a protocol that is capable of communicating with Windows computers.
I took care of that in the next statement. I just wanted the folder to start with a capital "S". I just downloaded security updates for Zorin so I am going to take zenzen's advice and restart my system. I'll let you know how it goes.
