Why can't I login as Root on Fedora 11?

posla · 08-05-2009, 08:10 PM

I installed Fedora 11 on VMWare to do some testing. I bought a Linux Administrators guide from Trainsignal which explains most things about Fedora.. However,I wasn't aware this training video was made for Fedora 5..
Anyhow, why am I unable to login as root? There is a lot of examples of logging into Terminal under root... I need to know how.
Any advice?
thanks

pixellany · 08-05-2009, 09:03 PM

I assume you mean login to the GUI as root. In many distros, that is disabled by default. Look in the menus under administration for some called "login manager" (or similar).

But: it is a very bad idea to be running in the GUI as root. A much better plan is to start specific applications from a terminal.

If you meant a terminal (command-line), you have to know the root password. If the GUI is already running, then open a terminal, and enter "su -" to become root. You can also get a command-line by using "ctrl-alt-F1" (or F2 or F3).

posla · 08-06-2009, 12:23 AM

Thanks! Exactly what I was looking for.