Ubuntu – Is root the owner of the Desktop in Ubuntu 14.04

chownownershipSecurity

When I am in my home folder there is a padlock on my Desktop icon. In properties there is written that root is the owner of Desktop and consequently I can't put anything on my Desktop.

I have recently installed this Ubuntu 14.04 and I would like to know why does the desktop icon belong to root while it wasn't so in Ubuntu 12.04 that I used earlier.

I know how to change the owner of a file using the command "chown" (or maybe this won't work for Desktop?) but I am afraid that it could somehow impair my security so first I would like to know the reason of this default setting.

Best Answer

To fix it you have to 

sudo chown your_user:your_user -R /home/your_user

The change ocured when you ran something, lokely a graphical program as root. Depending on how you called the program, the environmental variables, in this case $HOME were not changed.

In general, use sudo -i or , pksu

See :

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6188826&postcount=4

Why should users never use normal sudo to start graphical applications?

How can I run an application with a GUI as admin from a non-admin user session?

and

Why is gksu no longer installed by default?

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