Help restoring messed up settings

[Net Llama!]

On Tue, 5 Nov 2002, Chris Green wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 09:06:06AM -0500, Net Llama! wrote:
> > >
> > > Can I add a plea for more helpful error messages here, a message which
> > > says "Cannot create file" should *always* say what file it cannot
> > > create.  If the message had done this I would have taken about ten
> > > seconds to fix the problem rather than several hours.
> >
> > Huh?  Had you attempted to poke around to look for a reason why it
> > couldn't create the file, you would have determined the problem.  In
> > almost every case i've ever seen, a "cannot create file" error means
> > either that the dir that its trying to write the file to doesn't exist, or
> > that dir has permissions which preventing writing to it.
> >
> I did 'poke around' but since I hadn't a clue what file or directory
> it needed to write my poking around was rather undirected.  If it had
> simply said in the error message *what* file it couldn't write (full
> path needed of course) then I'd have known immediately what was wrong.

It did.  You conveniently snipped that out of this email.

> > > > As root:
> > > >
> > > > # chmod 666 /dev/dsp
> > > >
> > > I wonder why it doesn't get installed this way?
> >
> > What makes you so sure it doesn't?  I think the problem is your backups.
> >
> If you'd read my original message you would have noted that the disk
> I lost was the /home disk.  /dev/dsp is most definitely not on /home.

Then perhaps the problem extends beyond your backups.  At any rate,
permissions on /dev/dsp are not universal, they're specific to your setup.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com