jong357 - so do you wear a seatbelt when you're driving a car? -- J.W.

I don't know why anyone would be want to run as root all the time. There aren't that many admin duties needing to be done that often.

sudo is a better way to su

This is a useful reminder, I must admit I ran some things
as root for longer than I care to admit, e.g. minicom. The
really annoying thing is that I fixed it and run it as a user
but I cannot remember what I did! Does anyone else have any
similar confessions? It is really easy NOT to do many things
as root (just add users(s) and logon as one of them) but
sometimes that doesn't work.

ok guys - another newbie question. i get the fact that you don't want us to use the root at all times, just when needed. now, what is the alternative (aka, how do we create new users?) ?

"useradd" or "adduser" I use useradd. You can also use kuser or some graphical tool.

well, thatsmyboy what distro are you using. There may be tool within your distro that may help, or you can alwasys use adduser. Which is what I use. Get a prompt, su, type adduser, follow directions.

Heh, heh, heh.... Thats funny J.W.... Actually, no, I don't. I refuse to wear a seatbelt.... Let the cards fall where they may... I totally agree with you guys tho... Don't get me wrong. It's very sound advice. It's just not a be-all end-all sort of thing. Not for a single computer setup at home thats used to play games and surf the web. Thats my point is all.... In that type of situation, the only reason why you would NOT want to run as root is to save yourself from yourself... And if you have to do that then you have some more serious problems than you should.... I am CONSTANTLY tweaking and doing "administrative" tasks on my computer and you can't do that as a normal user... It's more of a pain in the ass to run as anything but root.... No biggie...

jong357,

Just a question. What kind of "tweaking" are you doing? Much software can be configured in files the software puts in your home directory or by copying a particular file to your home directory and then tweaking it there.

Anyway, just a little hint for any newbies out there.

jong357 - well if you're serious you've got more guts than me. Given that your philosophy is to "let the cards fall where they may", I'll also assume you're a straight-shooter and apply that fatalistic philosophy consistently in your life; thus, you'd also refuse to carry insurance for your house or car, or health insurance for yourself or your family, or bother to bring life jackets when you go fishing, or heck, even go to the dentist. After all, if something is going to happen then it's going to happen regardless of anything you do. If that's how you want approach life that's your call, but if you ask me you're taking on a whole lot of unnecessary and easily avoided risk.

To return to the thread's original point, running as root by default is a poor choice. If you have sufficient experience and deliberately choose to run as root all the time, that's obviously totally up to you, but for a newbie though, root should be used as sparingly as possible -- to suggest otherwise would be irresponsible.

I'll assume by your comments that you've got at least a couple years of day-in, day-out experience with Linux, and therefore you are comfortable with running as root all the time, but I'd encourage you to at least steer newbies in the right direction, even if it is, for you, somewhat of a "do as I say, not as I do" type of situation. For people without your level of experience/knowledge of Linux systems, running as root by default carries a great deal of risk, and should be discouraged. Just my 2 cents. Regards -- J.W.

I've used Linux for a year with so few problems that I avoided the graphic editor and the programming language almost entirely. (What a techno-phobe, ey?) But now all I get when I try to get into Linux is the black screen. It lets me log in, but it won't let me use Xconfigurator, because when I try to get to 'root' it just bashes the command. The xfree86 site sent me patches before to fix this, but now their patches don't work. Can anyone help me out? I've got windows on the same machine so that's what I'm stuck using now and it's oh-so-annoying.

Your right. I don't have insurance on anything actually. Haven't had a car in 2 years so theres no need for insurance there... Hate wearing life vests with a passion. Even more so than wearing seatbelts. And I especially refuse to wear a life-vest to the dentists office... Don't have a family so I can afford to live life on the edge... Most things happen for a reason and often times for the best, so I don't bother preventing them.... You don't learn anything by continually side-stepping things, except for how to play it safe..... But yes.... Ok already...

ATTENTION ALL NEWBIES:

DON'T RUN AS ROOT AND FOR PETE'S SAKE, WEAR YOUR SEATBELT!!!!!

Jong,


OK Jong repeat after me.

I Jong solemnly swear to run as a non privledged user and su to root only when needed.
I promise to uphold the security and prestige of running such a os as Linux and would not want to harm or weaken security for the general public. I jong will become a better user than the average window user and will try to do right even if it takes more time and effort

heh.. too funny

ok .. I agree here about not running as root .. I have had to install Redhat several times do to it .. here is my question ..

I am running RedHat 7.3 (I know its old) but if I go into the "Red Hat User Manager" (I am sure that you people running redhat know whatI am talking about) and Add a user .. Added another user for my self. What group or groups do I want to give this user?

I usually add a group with the same group name as my userid this allows you to manage your file permissions more easily.