how to remove "read only" restriction from a doc.

You can try doing:-
sudo chmod 777 ~/Desktop/name-of-file
which should then allow you to delete it.

About making sure it doesn't happen, you could perhaps suggest a umask of some sort, but I have no idea if this would work.

Hi,
it depends whether the disk is mounted, lines in /etc/fstab look something like this

e.g.
# added manually
/dev/sda5 /media/data vfat rw,defaults,umask=0000 0 1

or
# added manually
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/mount8.html
http://wiki.debian.org/fstab

Sam
I am a 62 year old total NON GEEK and what you wrote below is GREEK to me.
Thanks anyway.
Cathryn

--- On Sun, 7/13/08, Sam <email address hidden> wrote:

> From: Sam <email address hidden>
> Subject: Re: [Question #39108]: how to remove "read only" restriction from a doc.
> To: <email address hidden>
> Date: Sunday, July 13, 2008, 6:27 PM
> Your question #39108 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/39108
>
> Sam proposed the following answer:
> Hi,
> it depends whether the disk is mounted, lines in /etc/fstab
> look something like this
>
> e.g.
> # added manually
> /dev/sda5 /media/data vfat
> rw,defaults,umask=0000 0 1
>
> or
> # added manually
> /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs
> defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
>
>
> http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/mount8.html
> http://wiki.debian.org/fstab
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following
> page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/39108/+confirm?answer_id=1
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go
> to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/39108
>
> You received this question notification because you are a
> direct
> subscriber of the question.

Right-click on the icon and select "Properties", then select the "Permissions" tab.

The top item "Owner" should show your username, and underneath you should be able to change the "Access" to "Read and write".

Once you've done this you can click "Close" and you should now be able to delete the document.

Hi cathryn,
you've got my deep understanding, because I'm just a little younger, no geek and took the challenge to learn a lot.
Therefore just forget what I suggested and take manual steps to work on a file with your regular user permissions.

Since I assume you move the file from a filesystem which is not the same that Ubuntu is using, the permissions, if not from beginning configured when mounted, belong to so called "root".

If this is the case and further you use GNOME, then you can start Nautilus with a temporary permission to remove this file or open and work on it with regular user permissions.

You can open Nautilus with this special status by opening a terminal, this application is to find in the
menu -> applications -> accessories -> terminal
you type
gksu nautilus
and give your password which is the same when you login to Ubuntu.

Now you navigate to the file you want to remove and just delete it.
Or you change the permission now as Andy suggested above.

Please be aware that in this special status of Nautilus you should be careful with the actions you take.

Thanks Andy Ruddock, that solved my question.

Andy:
I right clicked on the document, selected properties, selected under OWNER to allow "change or delete", selected "apply these changes" and guess what? It worked!
Thanks for speaking to me in english! Wish I was fluent in Geek "GREEK" but alas...I am not.
Cathryn

Glad to be of help.
As with all foreign languages, it takes time & practice - and it helps to hang out with the natives now and again :)

Hy there.

I have a similar situation, just that the files are in my Home directory and the owner is the 'root'. Consequently, if I run 'sudo nautilus', I cannot access those files I want to delete.

Any bypass for such a situation?

Thank you very much
Teodor

Solved it through the terminal with help from (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=964478):

sudo rm -R name_of_dir

All the best to everyone