fdisk -l as normal user should give output

[Freddy Martinez]

If I run fdisk -l as a regular user, there is no output:

freddy@freddy-testing:~$ fdisk -l
freddy@freddy-testing:~$

I believe there should be output that says something like apt does to tell the user to be sudo.

freddy@freddy-testing:~$ apt-get install gaim
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?

Also, i tried to put this bug under the package "fdisk" but LP says no suck package exists, even though I searched for fdisk in the search form.

[RJ Marsan (rjmarsan)]

I agree. I get the same thing here, and to be honest if I didn't know better, i would be very confused.

if i try to run the same thing under debian it tells me:
rj@rjs-server:~$ fdisk -l
-bash: fdisk: command not found
rj@rjs-server:~$

so at least it lets me know if its locked out

[Seth de l'Isle (szoth)]

I don't think that Ubuntu or the fdisk maintainers are in a position to change this; low level command line tools like fdisk are the sort of thing that are depended upon by other applications so there is a lot of resistence to changing their output.

From the fdisk man page:

" -l List the partition tables for the specified devices and then exit. If no devices are given, those mentioned in /proc/partitions (if that exists) are used."

It could probably mention that disks for which you do not have read permission will be silently ignored.

[Fabio Marzocca (thesaltydog)]

In kernel 2.6.24 (hardy), typing fdisk -l with one or more USB pens inserted doesn't give any answer.

This is a change in behaviour with respect to 2.6.22. In gutsy, if I had an USB pen in the socket (even not mounted), I had it listed in fdisk -l.
Now it doesn't happen anymore.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

Just thought I'd mention that fdisk -l in util-linux 2.20.1-5.1ubuntu2 in Ubuntu 12.10 still has the same behaviour.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

I don't know when it changed over the years, but fdisk on Ubuntu 16.04 and later gives me the following result:
$ fdisk -l
fdisk: cannot open /dev/sda: Permission denied