Making Music Accessible To All Users In Linux Fedora 10: trying to sort out permissions

[Mordent 0]

As time's gone on, I've converted more and more of my music to a standardised naming format in the directory /home/*myuser*/music/. Now, both myself and my girlfriend (who uses my computer a fair bit) use RhythmBox to play music, which works absolutely fine. The only problem is that she can't see the music I have, and I can't see hers. Why? Because her music is in /home/*heruser*/music/.

 

So...what's the easiest way around this problem? Personally I'd rather keep all our music in one place...preferably in /home/*myuser*/music (as it is my computer), but if I have to move it all elsewhere I'm not too fussed...I've tried altering permissions to some extent, as well as trying (in vain) to create hard links, but I've had varying, if low, levels of success with that.

 

I suspect the answer will be something along the lines of creating a directory outside of /home/..., and giving the permissions so that anyone can have a look at it, but is there any other way around it? Thanks for any input!

[miladinoski 1]

Hmm... I never thought of solving a problem like that :PI think that the approach of creating a directory inside /home/ (not outside like you suggested) something like /home/music/ and giving permissions to both of you to look and add content into it (and adding the directory to Rhythmbox's 'media library') would be fine enough and work.But it's just a theory, I haven't had the need of doing something like that so know that it's untested — altough ofcourse you can expect help from me if you have stuck in a problem anywhere in this process

[Mordent 0]

Hmmm...interesting idea. So, after thinking about it, I created a group called "share" (which both my user and her user are part of), and also created a directory called /home/shared/ (permissions "drwxrwxr-x", so a "shared" home folder...). In there I put a directory called music (again with the default permissions of "drwxrwxr-x"), and it's seemed to work fine so far. All directories in it so far belong to me, so now to try logging in as her and seeing if I can get it to work. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

EDIT: Works like a charm! Thanks a bunch!

 

EDIT 2: So after sleeping on the idea, I created a few symbolic links around. This way we can both easily access the shared directory from our home directory, as well as have any private music that we want. Luckily, Rhythmbox (and I would imagine most other applications) follow links when looking for music, so I get both my shared music and my personal music to show up. Shame she hasn't got quite my taste of music, fancy not liking Daft Punk that much...

Edited January 5, 2009 by Mordent (see edit history)