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[z <zzd AT contentdb.net>]

On Thursday 22 April 2004 03:37 pm, Alan MacHett wrote:
> o! great Linux gurus!
>
> the idiot-leader needs assistance ... again.  ;)
>
> ...so I decided I didn't like the group name assigned to my personal login
> on this machine my friend gave me; the user name and group name were the
> same (apparantly that's standard under (later) RHL).  I changed the group
> name; I don't believe that I changed anything else, just the name of the
> group.
>
> Well, when I logged in again, all of the environment settings and personal
> preferences have disappeared.  Desktop image gone, toolbar gone, bookmarks
> in Mozilla gone, etc, etc.
>
> How do I fix that?  (as in, without having to manually reset everything)
> Can I fix that?  (as in, suck it up, Alan, you're a Linux idiot and you'll
> have to redo it all by hand)(as in, Matusiak's right and Linux is a pain
> in the arse) ;)
>
> ...time to invest in a RHL manual.  My newbie-ness in trying to navigate
> this stuff is tempting me to take this machine to Uzi's grill tomorrow...
>
> thanks,
> Alan
> fearless-clueless leader
> ---
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Probably the best way to modify a group name is to use the groupmod command 
(man groupmod). You can change a groups name like so...

mypc root# groupmod -n newGroupName oldGroupName

Since all files are stored with a groups gid and not the name, that would be 
pretty much it.

Now I do not know what you did to change the group name, but simply editing 
the /etc/groups file would not have been a good idea. Try changing things 
back to the way they were and then try the groupmod command.

Next time you pass a book store, look for a good linux book that covers most 
of the basic commands, there a lots of them out there