PulseAudio problem

[impinball]

I am not completely new to Linux, but I'm not the most familiar with it, either. I'm not going to put a large amount of detail into this, but enough to give an idea of what it is.

1. I am having issues with specifically PulseAudio sound output. ALSA works fine, and still outputs its sound like it should (speaker-test works), but PulseAudio gives nothing. Even after a clean re-install of both, ALSA works just as well, but PulseAudio works equally not as well
2. The issues are based on permissions of my home directory being out of whack. The owner of my /home directory is root, and so is my user directory (which is especially an issue). My biggest dilemma with this is that chown doesn't work--it runs as if it does every single operation successfully, but when I run ls -la /home, the owner still shows up as root, indicating that chown is not changing a thing.
3. The drive affected is an NTFS partition, also used for similar purposes by Windows. The /home directory is mounted to this partition, and I'm working on getting it mounted as C:\Users in Windows 7 as well (which I already know how, but I'm asking around in those circles to see the safer of the two options I have).

This clearly isn't of a single category, and is a little complex in nature.
My biggest question is this: where is the most appropriate forum for this issue?

[newb85]

I'm curious, what is the output of

head -n 1 /etc/passwd

[Crusty Old Fart]

Well, since you are not an "Absolute" beginner. Your thread probably doesn't belong in this forum. Since there are several issues involved with the difficulty you're having, a better place to have started the thread would have probably been in --> General Help

It seems to me that the problem with chown not working for you is that you're trying to do it on directories that reside on an NTFS partition. Although Linux can mount and access NTFS partitions, they aren't really as compatible with Linux as the ext2, ext3, and ext4 file systems are. I've never known of anyone trying to chown or chmod anything on an NTFS partition, so I could be completely wrong about the filesystem format of NTFS being the problem, But, that's my best guess. If I were you, I'd move my /home directory to an ext type partition.

Good Luck.

[QIII]

Yes, better here and with a better title

[Bashing-om]

WUBI ????impinball;

EDIT: WUBI ????

Let's get some background stuff out of the way.
Though there is an effort in NTFS3g development to incorporate linux file permissions onto NTFS ... not implemented in general use at this time.
These file permissions are set when the NTFS partition is mounted:
See:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mo...=NTFSReadWrite

Now .. filesystems; Windows runs and uses the NTFS file system - that ubuntu can read and write to - ,but, ubuntu uses/runs on the EXT(4) family of file systems. You want ubuntu installed on the proper format !
Show us the disk(s) partitioning; terminal commands:

sudo fdisk -lu
sudo parted -l
sudo parted /dev/sda unit s print
lsblk -f
sudo blkid

and further advise is pending.

For the permissions issue: Will await the return on newb85's request.

ain't nothing but a thing

[impinball]

Yes, better here and with a better title

If you wouldn't mind, go ahead and move the following post to here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2172645.
I'm going to update the main area of content accordingly.

[newb85]

Let me suggest an alternative to putting your /home directory on an NTFS partition and merge it with your C:/Users directory, which seems to be the root of the problem.

What if instead, you put /home on an Ext4 partition, and replace the Documents, Music, Downloads, etc. directories in your /home directory with links to their corresponding directories in your C:/Users directory? I'm assuming that would achieve the scenario you're pursuing...

[impinball]

Also, here's the output of each command you two asked for:

newb85:

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

Bashing-on (I only have the /home mounted on NTFS--the rest are properly installed on ext4 partitions):

$ sudo fdisk -lu
/dev/sda1            2048      206847      102400   de  Dell Utility/dev/sda2   *      206848    20686847    10240000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3        20686848   261859499   120586326    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       261875561   625141759   181633099+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       261875624   310922009    24523193    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6       310922074   445129019    67103473    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7       445143040   617033727    85945344   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       617035776   625141759     4052992   82  Linux swap / Solaris

$ sudo parted -l
/dev/sda1            2048      206847      102400   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2   *      206848    20686847    10240000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3        20686848   261859499   120586326    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       261875561   625141759   181633099+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       261875624   310922009    24523193    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6       310922074   445129019    67103473    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7       445143040   617033727    85945344   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       617035776   625141759     4052992   82  Linux swap / Solaris

$ sudo parted /dev/sda unit s print
Model: ATA ST9320423AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 625142448s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos


Number  Start       End         Size        Type      File system     Flags
 1      2048s       206847s     204800s     primary   fat16           diag
 2      206848s     20686847s   20480000s   primary   ntfs            boot
 3      20686848s   261859499s  241172652s  primary   ntfs
 4      261875561s  625141759s  363266199s  extended                  lba
 5      261875624s  310922009s  49046386s   logical   ntfs
 6      310922074s  445129019s  134206946s  logical   ntfs
 7      445143040s  617033727s  171890688s  logical   ext4
 8      617035776s  625141759s  8105984s    logical   linux-swap(v1)

$ sudo lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE LABEL MOUNTPOINT
sda                 
├─sda1              
├─sda2              
├─sda3              
├─sda4              
├─sda5              
├─sda6              /home
├─sda7              /
└─sda8              [SWAP]
sr0                 

$ sudo blkidt
/dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="DellUtility" UUID="3030-3030" TYPE="vfat" 
/dev/sda2: LABEL="RECOVERY" UUID="3400418A00415450" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda3: LABEL="OS" UUID="245612265611F8EE" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda5: UUID="BE8C34218C33D29F" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda6: LABEL="My Files" UUID="01CE89F2EF8C8DE0" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda7: UUID="adf43616-b5bb-4d95-b2ea-1fd97326af98" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sda8: UUID="9078ce75-a9eb-4e38-a7f2-7fd09e600b67" TYPE="swap"

I don't know if anything needs edited out, but if so, go ahead and take care of whatever needs edited.

Also, if you want more detail on things I've already tried, this is the original forum thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2172645. I do have one request: please reply about anything on either thread on this thread only.

[impinball]

I made a mistake. Here are the actual links to the posts and a little background of the two.
1. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2165204 - This is the initial thread that I created to try to get the problem fixed.
2. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2172645 - This is the thread that I created to summarize my initial thread.

[Bashing-om]

impinball; Well..

observations; Partitioning -> do not see how it would affect the current situations but ;;
/dev/sda4 -> 625141759
/dev/sda8 -> 625141759
Not good, need to move ubuntu's swap partition out of Windows' extended partition space.

And I go along with the others .. ubuntu /home on a Windows file system NTFS not a good arrangement. To share files use a common NTFS data partition.

just my thoughts