[PLUG] Permissions, ownerships and n00bie nightmares

[John Jordan]

OK, this worked before. Now it does not. I can't make any sense 
out of what is different now and why it is not working.

What is not working? Getting new mp3s into my iPod with gtkpod. 
In the past I plugged it into a USB port, I opened gtkpod, I told 
gtkpod to read its files. Then I added new mp3s to the list in gtkpod 
and told it to Sync. It synced. Done.

Now it does not automatically mount. But bear with me here, 
because my understanding of when something is mounted and 
when it is not is dim. E.g., if I can drag a file to and from a drive, I 
figure it is mounted. But I have been told that is not necessarily 
true. I don't understand why. I do understand the filesystem and 
mount points v. Windows way of doing things. I just don't 
understand when something is mounted.

So anyway, I plug in the iPod. I do "mount" and note that it is not 
mounted. So then I do "mount /media/iPod." This gives me an error 
message that special device sda2 does not exist. Like hell it 
doesn't. I even held the iPod up in front of the monitor so Ubuntu 
could get a good look at it. Doesn't exist. Bah. Stupid computer.

So finally I figure out that the command line seems to want the 
whole nine yards. It wants "mount /dev/sda -t vfat /media/iPod." But 
even that generated an error message. You see, just because I'm 
the one who paid for the computer doesn't mean I get to use it. At 
least, not as far as Linux is concerned. No. I have to mount the 
iPod as root. Otherwise I am just a worthless no-count user.

OK, so I do "sudo mount /dev/sda2 -t vfat /media/iPod." Yay! It's 
mounted! (Or seems to be.)

OK then I open gtkpod, it reads the iPod's database, and I proceed 
to add some new mp3s. Then I do Sync. And for each new mp3 I 
get:

"Error opening 
'/media/iPod/iPod_Control/Music/F12/gtkpod561325.mp3' for 
writing (Permission denied)."

What the hell? OK, I go to Konqueror and check permissions. Sure 
enough, the iPod is owned by root. Well, of course it is. Ubuntu 
required that I be root in order to mount it. But remember, gtkpod is 
being run by a mere worthless no-count user. So gtkpod can't write 
to the iPod. Why did this work before?

So what should I do? Create a new root account and just run 
everything as root from now on forever? Yeah, yeah, I know, you're 
not ever supposed to do that. OK, I won't. But the current situation 
is driving me insane. Plus, I really, really need my iPod. Because 
of the annoying Christmas music this time of year, I can't listen to 
the radio -- for the health of the radio, you understand -- because if I 
have to listen to one more little tin soldier I'm going to take a 
shotgun to the radio. And there are nine more days until this 
pseudo-religious madness is over. 

OK, getting back to resolving the problem. The last time I mounted 
my iPod and added stuff with gtkpod was a couple months ago. 
Back then I had 64-bit Hoary. Now I have 64-bit Breezy. So maybe 
Breezy broke something. But what? Suspicion: It broke the 
automount feature. But all I know about automount is that it exists 
and it's some cool feature of recent releases. 

So first, I need someone to tell me if my thinking is anywhere close 
to correct, that is, that the problem may lie with automount. And 
second, how to fix automount. And third, any other suggestions, 
including the fact that (as usual) I'm a hopeless n00bie who keeps 
screwing up his computer.