13.1 update: now user cannot log in to KDE, but root can

[smithi]

Thanks, will try over the next few days (have to be clear-headed).

Good idea!

In addition to Vull's suggested course of action - which looks good from here - you'll want to finish off by using chown to set your recovered files' ownership back to $newyou:$newyou ( e.g. 1001:1001), using -R to include subdirs.

I'd stick to numeric IDs until you're sure your username maps to 1001 or other chosen uid:gid, but make them both the same.

I would suggest during this exercise always using the long form of ls (to show uid:gid), and earlier when copying, do so as root with -p keeping ownership, permissions and timestamps (if file dates matter to you as they do to me).

Or use mv instead if confident you don't need the source files anymore, but with this sort of thing I'd be more careful, and remove excess copies later.

You don't need good luck if you have good backups <&^}=

 

[Zagzigger]

Good idea!

In addition to Vull's suggested course of action - which looks good from here - you'll want to finish off by using chown to set your recovered files' ownership back to $newyou:$newyou ( e.g. 1001:1001), using -R to include subdirs.

I'd stick to numeric IDs until you're sure your username maps to 1001 or other chosen uid:gid, but make them both the same.

I would suggest during this exercise always using the long form of ls (to show uid:gid), and earlier when copying, do so as root with -p keeping ownership, permissions and timestamps (if file dates matter to you as they do to me).

Or use mv instead if confident you don't need the source files anymore, but with this sort of thing I'd be more careful, and remove excess copies later.

You don't need good luck if you have good backups <&^}=

Thanks, I regard this as a dangerous operation; and yes, backups are in the plan.

 

[Vull]

Good idea!

In addition to Vull's suggested course of action - which looks good from here - you'll want to finish off by using chown to set your recovered files' ownership back to $newyou:$newyou ( e.g. 1001:1001), using -R to include subdirs.

I'd stick to numeric IDs until you're sure your username maps to 1001 or other chosen uid:gid, but make them both the same.

I would suggest during this exercise always using the long form of ls (to show uid:gid), and earlier when copying, do so as root with -p keeping ownership, permissions and timestamps (if file dates matter to you as they do to me).

Or use mv instead if confident you don't need the source files anymore, but with this sort of thing I'd be more careful, and remove excess copies later.

You don't need good luck if you have good backups <&^}=

Good advice, however the tar commands, using the -p flag, should be sufficient to preserve both file user and group ownerships, and the original permissions, for the home directory's files and subdirectories.

Reference: tar()

 

[smithi]

Good advice, however the tar commands, using the -p flag, should be sufficient to preserve both file user and group ownerships, and the original permissions, for the home directory's files and subdirectories.

Reference: tar()

Yes, quite so; I'd missed that you were using tar like that.

However Zagzigger will still (at the end) need to do a recursive chown -R on the extracted files, since tar stores and extracts the numeric uid:gid without any reference to the (then) text username:groupname, right?

Your method begins with a solid backup, so is repeatable should anything not work immediately.

 

[smithi]

Thanks, I regard this as a dangerous operation; and yes, backups are in the plan.

One more thing, after skimming through your earlier woes with starting KDE:

At one stage you had uid 1003 but gid 1004, which in itself could cause some confusion, never a good idea, so while cleaning out old, wrong uids and gids, be sure to get them all.

Then next user you add should get uid and gid 1002, etc.

 

[Vull]

Yes, quite so; I'd missed that you were using tar like that.

However Zagzigger will still (at the end) need to do a recursive chown -R on the extracted files, since tar stores and extracts the numeric uid:gid without any reference to the (then) text username:groupname, right?

Your method begins with a solid backup, so is repeatable should anything not work immediately.

Yes, I believe you are right.

 

[Zagzigger]

Before I dive into this (and thanks to all) may I just ask a couple of questions for understanding
1. Why is the user directory at risk?
2. If I left everything alone (there is no user 1001) and created a new user with uid = 1001 and gid = 1001, what would be the risk?
(and of course added the new 1001 user to the appropriate groups).
I think I am beginning to understand this now, but that of course is a dangerous thought.

Thanks to all.