sudo chown -R username:group /path/to/the/drive/
You should now be able to create folders and mount it normally
Or add the uuid to fstab so it's mounted as owned by their uid.
Is there some variable to use as placeholder for the current logged in user, or do I have to use one gid/uid for all users on the laptop?
It's a good use case for groups, mounted as that group and the users who need it being in that group.
I think this policy trick https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/mount-internal-partition-without-using-root-password/ at least on Debian it works
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