How do I interpret the results of the `ls -l` command?

I want to learn about the meaning of values for example first line;

drwxr-xr-x 2 ataka root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 ataka

is ataka here the owner of directory ?

kioutsovkm@orkide:/users/lnxsrv2/ee$ ls
ataka aydinoglu izgordu kioutsovkm kocaogluo
kioutsovkm@orkide:/users/lnxsrv2/ee$ ls -l
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 ataka root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 ataka
drwxr-xr-x 2 aydinoglu root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 aydinoglu
drwxr-xr-x 3 izgordu root 4096 2009-09-29 11:59 izgordu
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 kioutsovkm
drwxr-xr-x 4 kocaogluo root 4096 2010-06-10 03:41 kocaogluo
kioutsovkm@orkide:/users/lnxsrv2/ee$

2 Answers

Is ataka here the owner of directory?

Well, yes (third column), but it also happens to be the name of the directory (last column).

 +-permissions that apply to the owner | | +-permissions that apply to all other users | | | | +-number of hard links | | | | | | +-size +-last modification date and time _|_ _|_ | _|__ ________|_______ drwxr-xr-x 2 ataka root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 ataka ___ _____ ____ _____ | | | | | | | +-name of file or directory | | | | | +-the group that the group permissions applies to | | | +-owner | +-permissions that apply to users who are members of the group

See man ls, man chmod and info ls or info coreutils 'ls invocation' for more information.

Yes. ataka is an username and root is a group.