bootmessage and mkdir

[J Lindroos]

As a newbie in Linux I want to learn as much as possible about this terrific system. To not go to fast I just wanted to do things like changing texts like hostname and the bootmessage. I found the bootmessage.txt with the text you see when LILO starts, and I changed it. But it didn't work. The text n the beginning has been transformed into weird symbols. Why, the file looks like the one before but another text. Do the size have to be the same?

My other question: I have a user, let's just call it user. I want to change his directory. If I'm using mkdir to create the directory and set it as homedirectory in /etc/passwd other users can read in it. So I have to use mkdir's option -m to change the mode. But I don't know what to have as parameter for -m. The help and man page for mkdir does'nt help me at all

Please help
/J Lindroos

[knute]

try: chmod 2770 /home/user

I believe that it is 2770. I've never been able to figure out that first bit. I believe that there is a -R option in chmod to do it recursively. Check the man page to make sure. Not at home atm or I would myself!

[J Lindroos]

Well that also changed user's permission. He is not permitted to look in the directory