okay, yesterday I installed RH7.3 and just did all my activities in root, which I learned is a bad thing to do so I created a user file for myself. Now, my question is: Whenever I was using the root identity any console command would work, of course.

But in my new personal profile, even if I su and switch over to root simple commands like 'setup' or 'shutdown -r now' no longer work. It's kinda annoying and I haven't been able to find out how to correct the problem. Can someone plz explain to me how I can get things as simple as 'shutdown' to work in my personal profile?

you'll have to use sudo...
you can read up on it to learn more about it, but you'll have to make an entry in your /etc/sudoers file to give your normal users access to theses "root" commands..

Which do you use?

su

or

su -

"su -" makes you root, and loads root's environment variables (the PATH is probably most important to you). A normal account does not include /sbin or /usr/sbin in the path as those are system administration commands. So, if the shell claims that it can't find the executable, that's the problem.

If the programs are failing then it's something else entirely.

Another option (love linux for options) is to go to another "terminal" and do your root stuff. If you're running a GUI (KDE, GNOME, ICEVM, etc) press Ctrl-Alt-F1 (or F2, F3, etc) to move to another terminal. You can log in there as root (or anyone else, for that matter) and do what you need to do.

I'm not familiar with RH7, but most distos I've seen have the default GUI at Ctrl-Alt-F7, to get you back to KDE/GNOME/Whatever.

Make sure that the "shutdown" program has access permissions such that it is executable by you, and make sure you have corresponiding path in your environment (or call it using the full path i.e. "/usr/sbin/shutdown" or wherever your "shutdown" is, you can find it with "find / -name shutdown").

thanx dark helmet, that - after su was causin all my frustration. Now everythihg is back to normal

why did you install 7.3 when there is 9 out now?

i already have the 7.3 CD's and just didn't want to d/l the rh9 cuz my connection isn't all that fast (avg. 18.0kb/s), and i just didn't want to wait that long.

But out of curiousity, what does it have that is missing on 7.3? I might consider getting it if it is a big emprovement.

There are lots of bug fixes, hardware support, New KDE....etc....

There is also the fact the Redhat only support there versions for about a year then they stop the support.

This means that there will be updates for your version but 9 will be updated for another 11months'ish.


Medic6666

IMNSHO WRT RH9 (how's that for a working string of acronyms ):

RH8 and RH9 seemed to me to be the time that RH started trying to aim more at eye candy than anything else. I tend to believe that RH 7.3 is about the ending point of a solid, good, not so "I'm afraid to include X in this release" or "I need to make this look extremely different so no one can know what it really is" release. 7.3 was also the turning point when (again to me) RH started going more commercial. That's neither good nor bad, it's just something I believe was the turning point.

8 and up also seemed to jump versions very quickly just so they didn't have an inferior version number to Mandrake. That's not saying much other than they feel competition.

Now I know I'll get A LOT of slack for this next illustration, but it's my non-RH using personal oppinion and could easily be VERY incorrect:

7.3 <---- Aimed at adults, more mature, more specifically, the CLI crowd 'types'.
"Patty Cake" Version, aimed to please the newbies (but not very well...) expects little to no linux knowledge (yet doesn't provide enough help in doing so) -----> 8 and up

Again, I don't use RH and haven't since 7.2 (which was only for a short time then too) so I hope my personal opinion holds little to no weight on anyone's opinion or ideas about RH

Cool

MMMmm

I still do most of my stuff in Command Line but the GUI makes it more enjoyable and there is still the fact that 9 has a lot of fixes that the other did'nt.

When I had 7.3 there was problems I have installed 9 on the same machine and there are no problems. This means they must have fixed something.

There is also the case that I work in PC Support all day and when I get home I dont want to use Windows, but at the same time dont want to spend all my time trying to fix my linux pc.

The GUI makes it all easier and I still have the option to play command line when I want to....


Just my little bit.