How to handle permissions of unzipped files?

I have been trying to install a software called ABAQUS on my UBUNTU laptop and as a part of the installation, I'm trying to run a script file called 'StartGUI.sh' using the command "bash ./StartGUI.sh" in the terminal. It then shows the following error every time: "Error: This media has been unzipped or copied in such a way that the permissions of some files have been lost. Please unzip or copy the media again."

I have tried selecting all the files and gave read and write permissions, yet I am facing the same issue. When I looked for a solution in Google, some articles suggested using 'chmod' but I couldn't figure out how to use it exactly. Could you guys please help?

2 Answers

To absolutely preserve the permissions/ownership, (once you've listed the archive to see where it installs its files (and are happy with that)), clean up previous installation attempts, and re-unpack the archive as user root, using sudo. Read man sudo.

There is an easier numeric method to use chmod. If you want to give read permissions, type 4, if write type 2, if only execute type 1. Fore instance if you want to give all permissions to a file, the command will be:

chmod 777 [filename] 

The first 7 (4+2+1) gives all permissions to file owner (which you can change using chown command), the second 7 gives all permissions to the file group, and the third 7 gives all permissions to others.

I recommend you open the terminal in the folder you want to change permissions by simply navigating to that folder using GUI, right-clicking and then choosing "open in terminal", then issue following command:

sudo chmod 777 * 

sudo enables the administrator privileges, and the star at the end of command means issue the following command to all files in the folder. this is not exactly safe, but it will work 100%. for safer approach, type the file name instead of *. I recommend using * in your case though.

Also, The Web site offers everything you need to know in more specific detail. good Luck!