On Nov 20, 2003, at 11:37 AM, bradyh at bitstream.net wrote: > <sarcasm>Yeah, gee, man files are so useful.</sarcasm> I really want > to learn > what an OCTAL-MODE FILE is so I can use my DVD player. (Which brings > me to my > second rant of the day: Why can't man files include a couple simple > examples of > common usages of the command?) > Then perhaps you should stick to something a little easier for you to understand. There are other ways to represent the permissions. Further inspection of the manpage will show you that "chmod g+rw filename" will add group read/write permissions to 'filename' #----snip manpage for chmod DESCRIPTION This manual page documents the GNU version of chmod. chmod changes the permissions of each given file according to mode, which can be either a symbolic representation of changes to make, or an octal number repre- senting the bit pattern for the new permissions. The format of a symbolic mode is `[ugoa...][[+-=][rwxXs- tugo...]...][,...]'. Multiple symbolic operations can be given, sepa- rated by commas. A combination of the letters `ugoa' controls which users' access to the file will be changed: the user who owns it (u), other users in the file's group (g), other users not in the file's group (o), or all users (a). If none of these are given, the effect is as if `a' were given, but bits that are set in the umask are not affected. #------- end snip Even more inspection of manpages will show you that there are quite often an "EXAMPLE" section of the manpage such as in this tar manpage on my ibook #----snip tar manpage EXAMPLES To create an archive on tape drive /dev/sa0 with a block size of 20 blocks, containing files named bert and ernie, you can enter tar cfb /dev/sa0 20 bert ernie #----- end snip Perhaps linux is not right for you. Only you can decide that. Ranting on-list won't fix your issues, reading the manpages however will. > CHMOD(1) FSF > CHMOD(1) > NAME > chmod - change file access permissions > > SYNOPSIS > chmod [OPTION]... MODE[,MODE]... FILE... > chmod [OPTION]... OCTAL-MODE FILE... > chmod [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE... > > Quoting Sam MacDonald <smac at visi.com>: > >> >> LOLROF >> >> A home user will go back to M$ >> >>> >>> man chmod >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > -- Ben Lutgens U.S. Admins, Inc Server Gumby _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list