Why would you want to except to configure your system? I use Midnight Commander. It's as simple and easy as an X file manager without the headaches.

A disabled GUI root login is not an infringement on freedom
 

I have seen several threads about the inability to log in to a GUI session as the root user. I have also viewed the responses about system security, so I will not expound on that subject here.

irlandes has posted a reply in this thread that I interpret to mean that disabling the ability to log in to a GUI session as the root user is an infringement on your freedom. I strongly disagree. The only way this could be true would be to remove this ability entirely. I think that most if not all the distributions have made a choice to disable this ability as a sensible enhancement to system security. If a user disagrees with the distributors decision, he or she can change the configuration. If that user lacks the knowledge to change the configuration, he or she can ask for help. Admittedly if I see such a question, I will caution the questioner about the increased risk, but I will provide the requested information and I think most Linux users would do the same. After all, Open Source Software is about freedom and choice.

In the same post irlandes correctly questioned the idea that su somehow keeps you from making mistakes. It does not. Any time you work with root authority, you can do very bad things if you are careless. The value of using su in a terminal window is that you can run one application rather than a full session as the root user and also have a WEB browser open as a regular user on the same desktop. When the administrative work is finished, you can close the root session in the terminal window and minimize any risk. It is significantly safer to execute individual applications with root authority than to run a full root session in a GUI.

My :twocents:

I understand the reasons for recommending against logging in as root, and my Linux systems all have regular user setup - with a few icons on the desktop for root stuff: Kwrite SU, File Manager SU, that sort of thing. At the time, I didn't know how to do it different. By the time I'd learned how, I'd got used to SU and sudo and kdesu and all the rest. I still cursed it, mind.

What gets to be a pain in the neck is having to type the root password umpteen times while doing something. When I followed the advice of the system and set nice long, strong passwords that was a real pain. The root passwords now are as short as I can persuade the system to use!

If I could find a way to tell those SU icons to remember the password and not ask for it every time, I would!