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This isn't even a problem yet, but I hope to prevent one! On this machine, I piut /usr/local in a separate partition

/dev/sda6 /usr/local ext3 users,rw 1 2

but as far as I can tell, I don't have permission to write anything there; I'm reduced to moving files about using Puppy. Never mind, it's only a few gigabytes. I'm about to do a fresh install of Salix 13.1 on a machine that came back from the menders' recently. When the installer asks me about groups (such as "plugdev"), what should I say? As far as I remember, when I was doing this installation, I followed the suggestions and added some extra ones here and there for good measure based on my research, but obviously, I still wasn't really sure what I was doing.

I apologise for any typos - my glasses are being mended

What do you mean you have no permission to write to /usr/local? /usr/local is not supposed to be user writable.

And the installer asks you for groups if you try to add a user using the "advanced mode". In that case, you should know which groups you want your user to be a member of. Or accept the defaults if you don't know. If you don't use the "advanced mode" for adding a user, the defaults are used anyway.

I must have got the impression somehow that /usr/local was another place you could put stuff - quite possibly simply from the name. It was a while ago. Perhaps it's best if I just go for putting /home on its own partition. I can't remember for certain how the permissions ended up for the two windows partitions on that machine (same arrangement as for Linux, OS and data) but I think I did manage to allow myself rw access. Anyway, I won't need to worry about that for this installation, because the machine is for my own personal use only so I won't be putting XP on it at all

EDIT

Just noticed the release of 13.1.1 live; I think I'll try and install that way.

Congratulations and happy birthday Salix!

I must have got the impression somehow that /usr/local was another place you could put stuff

You can put stuff there but most personal things should be in a users home directory. I understand that /usr/local is a carry over from unix days and that an administrator would use it for non system applications. It used to be that allot of software defaulted to installing there if you compiled yourself and used the command "make install" This could be change by adding "--prefix=/usr" to the ./configure command when rolling your own but its not necessary to bother about such things if you're using Salix and installing from the repos.

Probably not conventional but I have used the /usr/local tree for years as a place for my scripts and simple c aps (/usr/local/bin), icons, backgrounds, and desktop config files (/usr/local/share), etc. I keep /usr/local on a separate partition so I don't have to lose or move it all on an install if I choose to reinstall on that machine and I can copy the lot over to a another machine in one shot. Permissions and groups are my choice but security as always must be a consideration.

Perhaps it's best if I just go for putting /home on its own partition.

For me this is also a personal choice. I have put /home in a separate partition for years for the same reasons as above. You will find lots of threads on the net about the"best" partitioning scheme. IMHO the best one is the one that suits your needs.