Becoming root
 

I'm running Suse Linux 9.0 with the Gnome desktop.

Whan I installed the system it asked me for a root password, which of course I supplied.

When I fire up Linux I do not have root privileges, therefore there are mounts (such as my thumb drive) that I cannot write to. There are other things I cannot do because I don't have root privileges.

Is there any way I can assign root 'rights' to myself, or make my normal login root?

Thanks!

I dont use suse but im assuming the yast admin tool would allow you to change permissions for things so you can ahve root permissions to remable media. A quick solution is to open a terminal and type su
your root password
nautilus then navigate to where your thumb drive it, it will probobly be /mnt/sda1 or something similar

slightly off topic but it may be worth you upgrading to a new version os suse 9.3 or 10.0 for updated packages and things.

In SuSE10.0 you can log into Terminal Program - Superuser and that puts you into a root shell as well; there might be a similar option in your version.

Regarding making your normal login root; most here would tell you that doing so would be a bad thing. Root shell login being a "non-normal" action is actually beneficial in that only the "root" can make major system changes. This is quite protective to the system and can prevent errors during normal operation from being catastrophic (of course this doesn't protect against errors made as "root").

I'm a noob myself but this is one concept that I have seen almost universally in many Linux forums.

Thanks to all who replied. I'm aware that I can become root via a terminal, however in terminal mode you don't have the nice graphical interface that generally makes things so easy.
Call me lazy, but I (mostly) gave up text-based interfaces when I migrate away from DOS many many years ago.

I'm also aware that it's not a good idea to run on a day-to-day basis as root (been in the computer business one way or another for many years.) In reviewing what I'd asked I see that I mis-stated my desire in this regard.

What I desire is a way in which I can create another user account that does have root access, so that I can switch from my 'normal' logon to the root account - complete with GUI.

Thanks again.

Running a GUI as root really is not a good idea, for the same reason you mentioned earlier about running as root day to day. It's just too easy to forget who or where you are, and do something as root that you later regret.

Other than mounting a drive, what other tasks do you find yourself doing again and again that require you to be root, and which would be simplified through using a GUI?

FWIW, the only common reasons I find myself needing root access are installing packages, mounting/unmounting devices, running certain commands (eg, lsmod, starting and stopping processes, etc) but none of those would be particularly helped by a GUI. Obviously I recognize everyone's computer usage is different, but at least to me, the need to run as root should be a fairly infrequent event, and not the kinds of things where a GUI would add value. That said, SuSE offers numerous tools (mainly YaST) through the Window Manager (I'd suggest trying KDE) which allow you to perform certain root tasks, Using those tools does not require you to log out at all, but instead just enter the root password to start the operation