I was wondering if people here prefer using the "root user" account or if you prefer "sudo" ?

Personally, I prefer "root" over "sudo" because if you can't trust yourself to know which user account you are running under, well maybe you should get someone else to administer your machine(s). And I like the old fashioned approach!

I know that the "root user" account is disabled by default in at least some distro's (like the *buntu's etc), but it can be quite easily re-enabled. Does anyone actually do that for another question?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Sudo for me. That way I am more aware of what I'm doing when I'm actually root - I can't stay hyper focused and vigilant the whole day and the potential damage I can do is less when I'm running as a non-root user. To add to that, running some GUI apps as root, such as the browser, can be a huge security problem.

The way I see it is that command-line server distros are best run as root, desktop distros as an ordinary user using sudo when required.

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Sudo is safer if you limit the commands the user you run sudo under can run. This can be inconvenient but nobody said security was convenient, lol. Most distros that disable root have ALL:ALL in etc/sudoers anyway so really what sudo gains you in that regard is an audit trail. If you use the root user, you have no idea who ran a given command in a multi-user environment, especially if folks login directly as root. If you run sudo, there is a log kept of who ran what. If you religiously su to root, then this is also logged so you can see who su'd ad at what time. That's better than nothing.

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Sudo for me except when I need to do a sequence of root operations. Then it's quicker just to become root for the duration using su.

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Wouldn't "sudo su" work for that, if you have a distro that doesn't use a root password? I suspect that all your distros do what you want them to, though!

Personally, I use whatever the distro wants me to. If, for example, you enable the use of a root password on a distro that uses sudo, you can find yourself instinctively using it when a GUI tool asks for a password and that won't do.

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It's no problem for me to remember two passwords. Of course if I'm trying a distro that uses sudo as default, I'll use that.

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I always have a root password. As far as I know, it's only the *buntus that don't support root logins natively.

@BrianL: I thought I had no problem remembering both my passwords until I broke my right shoulder in February and had to spend a week in hospital. When I got home, I found that my rather complicated root password was actually stored in "muscle memory" and not in my head. Typing with the left hand, I couldn't reconstruct it. Fortunately I had given myself full sudo rights so I got by!

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Another vote for sudo as a general user, quick & easy for the odd command that needs it, like mounting/unmounting drives, (I don't like having them automatically mounted) - but if I need to work as root, then I'll switch to root.

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I use sudo with no passwd, and su at times, I detest distro's that decided to take control of are lives in dedicating that root account is not needed. who are they to dictate such rules?

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always. I worked as UID 0 for many years before I even heard of sudo. I've never learned to use it.

And what BW-userx said!

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"Control of our lives"?

There are rules all throughout Linux - file attributes, access rights, password requirements, all intended to make Linux more secure. "Power users" can easily tweak Linux, and that includes giving root a password for those distros who make the root password empty and locked by default (and these distros are not "dictators", they're just trying to improve security for the normal user).

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Flame bait if I ever saw it...

someone asked my option..... (darn no open flame emojo icons) LQ needs a icon update. ;D

Point taken! And yes, a flame emoji would be useful

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While it's like everything else here it's open to interpretation, personally I didn't see it like that. BW-userx is still on-topic. As long as it's about the thread topic (which I must say all posts so far have been) and no rules have been broken, then it's fine by me.

I must say while I didn't intend on responding this soon, some great comments so far! Thanks guys!