Ubuntu 10.10 does not allow double-click execution of files such as binaries or Python scripts if they are on a flash drive, even when the file is marked as executable.
I believe it is probably a security measure new to 10.10; 9.10 allows double-click execution.
How can I revert this behavior?
Prior to Ubuntu 10.10, all files on drives formatted with the vfat file system (e.g. most flash drives) were mounted with the executable bit. This led to a couple of problems, in particular you were asked for all text files whether you want to open or execute them (Bug #14335). It was therefore decided to mark all files as not executable, but use the mount/fstab option "
showexec" (which is documented in themountman page), that's why.exe,.batand.comare still marked as executable: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/vfat-noexecBy the way: This change was sent upstream, so all other distributions using
udiskshould now show the same behaviour.You may set the mount behavior on a per-drive (using the drive's UUID) or per-mount-label basis by adding entries in your filesystem table (
/etc/fstab; seeman mountandman fstabfor more information.) Note that this will cause duplicate entries for every affected drive in Nautilus (and perhaps other file managers as well).Alternatively, if you are only using your flash drive with Linux machines, you can reformat it as ext3, etx4 or similar, where the normal UNIX rights and the executable bit apply.