Access Desktop as root user in linux

Question

I know the command to get to your Desktop is cd ~/Desktop. This however does not work as the root user. However I need to be the root user because I would like to move a file, from my desktop into my /mnt/disk folder so that I can mount my .iso. I can't click-and-drag either as I do not have permission. I've been trying for about an hour and am quite frustrated; so any and all help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Solution

If you want to access a folder under another users home directory instead of using ~ you need to use ~username. So I would do something like ~zoredache/Desktop. You could also simply use the full path. Typically on a Linux system the home directories are under /home, so you could use cd /home/zoredache/Desktop.

If you cannot access your home directory while logged in as root, then that indicates that you may be try to access a filesystem that was mounted with fuse. As a security measure, by default, fuse will setup restrictions to prevent any else from accessing the filesystem except the user that mounted it.

Comments

[Thalys]

what distro/desktop environment? and why can't you use a terminal to do it?

[Hanna]

I can use the terminal, I just don't know how. I'm using Ubuntu 10.10 --- GNOME too I believe.

[vtest]

What do you mean by "it does not work"?

[Hanna]

The command, cd ~/Desktop doesn't work. It says the directory cannot be found (because it is basing it off of /root, not /home)

[Hanna]

Whenever I tried going through my user it said that the file/directory does not exist =/

[Hanna]

But using your line it worked, thank you... now let's see if I can figure the rest out :]

[Thalys]

what he wants,seems to be to mount the ISO - which dosen't actually involve moving the disk at all.