Directory has permissions drw-r--r-- 3 root root ("others" should be able to read it) but I can't cd to it as my user. Why?

Question

Isn't this supposed to work? I changed the ownership to that of my user but it still says "Permission denied".

Answer 1

In order to be able to access a directory you need the execution permission on that directory. say chmod o+x /somedir

Hope this helps.