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Old 10-25-2003, 10:46 AM   #31
grassapa
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nvn, why do you say that all my claims are false? not because im a linux noob, it makes me a computer noob. i know computers and i know what breaks them and what not, software and hardware wise, and ive used all kinds of microsoft's os (which are also the most dangerous) and never had a problem, now how do u explain that?
 
Old 10-25-2003, 10:47 AM   #32
grassapa
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nvn im tryin to be reasonable here, i see why you have your opinion and respect it, but you have to give credit to other people who think different from you. im respecting what you guys think about root, but you cant say my claims arent false either, you can see this both ways.
 
Old 10-25-2003, 11:00 AM   #33
Nimoy
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Registered: Jun 2003
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I think the problem or should I say the syntax everyone seem to be dancing around is not whether grasspa is careful or not but whether the potential user which grasspa is never going to see or speak to is carefull or not and whether he is unlucky or not when it comes to running into malicious people pages or products while surfing the net or whatever he does. If grasspa wants to do right on the person whom he is never going to see or talk to and whom he apparently would like to never see or talk to he should make sure that that person had to log in like a regular user - believe you me I've had experiences with people trying to mess with a charitable organization that is trying to help disabled people all over the world. So don't for one second think that the web is a benign and safe environment for anyone.

RedHat can log into graphical mode - And I suspect it should be possible to set the boot process in a way that it logs in a specific user who doesn't have root privileges but access to most of the stuff on his system.

And let's face it - If you are capable of doing installs etc. changing to Root is certainly not something you will be called upon about grasspa.

Think of the guy you are setting up - Not yourself... people no matter how smart you think they are are capable of the committing the most horrendous things, and this isn't especially people unused to computers but people generally I afraid.

Do yourself a favor - stick with a graphical logon. (in RH that would be runlevel 5)
 
Old 10-25-2003, 12:05 PM   #34
mad4linux
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grassapa let me tell you another way.
It's not important to knoe about a shell skript. It's just a program i'm running. But because i'm running it as root, this program is able to do anything. Imagine running windows, but all files are the same, no write protection for C:\windows\system - files, no warning if you are on the way to delete an important file. If you ar a user, things that would be malicious to your system don't happen. If you are root they can happen just because of a bug in an application. And there is not much applications without any errors, so running them as root is just somewhat more dangerous than running them as user.
 
Old 10-25-2003, 12:08 PM   #35
g00$e
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He wanted a reason not to do it. I guess everybody and their brother saying it is a bad idea is not good enough. I think dragging this out any further is just trolling.
 
Old 10-25-2003, 12:09 PM   #36
J.W.
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Sheesh - this is absurd. Grassapa - the point is NOT that people are "afraid" or "fearful" of using root, but instead that because root is all-powerful, it is possible to inadvertently or accidentally run a command that can damage your system, possibly beyond repair. In contrast, regular user accounts only have permissions to mess up their own files, in other words, a regular user would not be able to mess up system files. Furthermore, you need to acknowledge that the act of running the wrong command or a bad command usually isn't because the person running it has no idea what they're doing, it's because people make typing mistakes, or think they are in one directory when they're actually in another, etc.

As I said before, I personally don't care what user you log in as on your PC. However, if you always run all your apps as root, I'd be willing to bet that there will be a heart-stopping moment when you suddenly realize that your machine has got some serious problems, and it's because you did something as root that unexpectedly took out other files you needed. (Typically this seems to happen right before a major deadline.) If/when that happens, *then* you might finally understand why it's a bad idea to run as root all the time. Adios -- J.W.
 
Old 10-25-2003, 12:45 PM   #37
Onemessedupjedi
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They will have to have someone teach them how to use linux one way or another. You can be nice and save a open session with a text file explaining how to use konsole(open it I mean ) and how to su and when you need to su(such as before make installs. Also, some tips such as just use RPMs if possible and if you see a install file for .tgz.gz(or whatever the extension is) then read the install file, plus give a quick overview of basic installs if there is no install file present. Just remember all the basic stuff you wanted to do but had to have someone tell you or you had to read up on to figure out. Heck, without this site it would have taken me a while to find out how to get to the man files. Any OS is useless without someone sitting there with you for a few minutes telling you how to get to what you want. If they have never used a OS then how would they know how to open office? heck, even how to use the help to help them use the OS.

Keeping someone in the dark is bad....
Letting someone make mistakes as they feel their way around in the dark is just mean.
Giving them a help file and a URL or two (one of this site obviously) is one of the most helpful things you can do for a new user.

Think about the fish analogy, give a person a little box with a screen and they will break it(I sure know I did), teach a person how to use the box with a screen and they will get some work done. Well, that wasn't quite the fish analogy, but it was close.

I agree with not allowing them to log in as root automatically, let them choose their own name at least, I'd hate to run with my username as root. Oh, and it's a bit unsafe (saved me from saving a bad XF86Config file, before backing it up, a few times)

And now that I have mindlessly ranted I bid ye farewell.
 
Old 10-25-2003, 05:11 PM   #38
grassapa
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i use linux cuz i have control, control over everything and with great powers, come great responsibilities (ie, being responsible of what you do) there would be no reason to use linux if it wasnt for its freedom to do what you want, which is what makes linux so great. if not i would use windows (not that there is anything greatly wrong about windows, but its limits piss me off, yes there are viruses and bugs but a simple patch solves it, happens in games too so one should be used to that). why are yall arguing with noob anyways, i said it before, while i get better at linux, ill realize why i should limit the use of root, for now, i believe its ok .

since im gettin some attention, let me ask what drivers should i use for my ati radeon 9600 mobility? and my pci_id 8086:24d6 (subsystem 1558:0800, got all this info by running scanmodem) modem?

also, what can you do so bad that goes beyond repair? is it a hardware damage? teach me more.
 
Old 10-25-2003, 05:14 PM   #39
grassapa
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Onemessedupjedi, this guy im talkin about is a computer illiterate, he can barely spell "computer". so none of that su, konsole, linux will make sense to him. im gonna automatically log him in as a normal user.
 
Old 10-25-2003, 07:16 PM   #40
quatsch
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Location: New York, NY
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Search in the forum for what the right drivers are. I'm sure there are threads on your ATI card. I believe that there are drivers from ATI that you can download from them (but I'm not sure; I use cheap-ass cards that never required anything special )

Apparently, hardware damage can happen. The new mandrake9.2 fries certains cd-rom drives into oblivion - no clue how that happens, though. A bad X configuration can fry your monitor. I guess there are ways to fry your HD too - don't wanna know how though.

If you want all the powers of root, all you need is the su command. It's thrilling to be able to declare yourself all-mighty just by a little command. You'll never feel the thrill if you are always root. But hey, it's really up to you whether or not to be root all the time. I think a lot of us have had to learn the hard way that it really is a bad idea (I certainly learned the hard way and I did not consider myself unaware of the dangers) and are trying to help you avoid the same mistake.

cheers
 
Old 10-26-2003, 05:31 AM   #41
grassapa
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ive only found another guy who posted about the radeon 9600 pro mobility, and nobody responded.
 
  


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