Ok, I've been using Linux for about a week now, and have tried making a new user other than root, succeeded, but found that many of the features, such as mounting CDs, compiling stuff, etc. How do I enable this? I really need to start using an account other than root, cuz I hear it's bad practice to do this. Any suggestions?

Usually U log into the system using U'r account and then "su" to root to do any system critical tasks.

Example given below...

$> su - root
password: xxxxxxxx

#root>mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

#root>exit

$>

To give a regular user access that only root has, you should look into sudo or maybe just "su -" to login as root to perform the task, then log back out. To give a regular user access, you need to learn more about permissions, setting permissions and ownerships, groups, etc.

Some commands to learn and you can read the man pages by type man followed by the command:

chmod
chown
chgrp
sudo
su
useradd
groupadd

Also for mounting cd's and such, you can check or change the permissions for some drives in your /etc/fstab file. Have a search around the forums as its asked and explained all the time.

But yes, its always good practice to just be a regular user instead of root all the time.

Odd, it won't let me into X when I use my other account... dangit.