Is there a way for me to just go in GNOME as root and change my user rights to just do anything?
That way I won't have to worry about doing chmod on everything and I'll be able to run, install and pretty much do anything I like without having to move from user to root, over and over just for something that's missing.
I tried going into the User configuration in gnome as root and setting the primary group as 'root'.
This however does not seem to work cause I can't install anything as my user 'teo' which is the one I changed.


Thanks much in advance,
Teo

Hi Teo, and welcome to LQ.

And now that the friendly words have been said ...

/me slaps Teo over the wrist... "You shall not have root privileges unless required!"


Please, do a search on the forums as for WHY you
really don't want to do this, there even was a poll
with that topic not too long ago :)



Cheers,
Tink

Hi! :-)
I know security is a big issue in Linux.
I was wondering then how can I assign my user rights to install any kind of application under my login name? That way I don't have to switch between users every time. It's just hectic, specially when you're trying to learn linux.
Also, where can I download the default libraries needed, for example by aMSN.
I have been trying for 2 days now to get that program up and running. Downloaded the TCL files and everything and I do all the instructions that the author of the software provides at amsn.sourceforge.net and still nothing. When I execute the make instruction I get errors and I can never get to the end of the program setup.
I tried doing it as both root and my local user. So far, no luck.
Where can I get most of the common libraries that I would need to execute the programs?
I also tried downloading the latest version of GAIM, the rpm file. When i did the rpm -i file.rpm I got an error that libraries are missing.
What is the easiest way to install something on linux. I am transitioning from Windows and I really want to leave it behind but it's really hard to try and use Mandrake.

Thanks much if you can help,
Teo

Well .. it's not that bad, you don't need to
switch users, really ... all you need to do is

su -c "command to execute with parameters"

then give it root's password and it's all good :)

For other admin tasks there's sudo...
Have a look at:
man sudo
man sudoers



Cheers,
Tink

as of amsn i am not sure what your problems are ... just download the tarball and extract it with :
tar -zxvf amsn-0_82.tar.gz
cd msn
./amsn
and it will run .... they are three basic steps ... i know your just learning and believe me i am not trying to insult your knowledge, but if this is in fact what you already did, then tell us what your error was when trying to run it ...
as of gaim, when it says it has dependancies and it can't install then you have to download them packages and install them first, before continuing with the installation of what you are actually trying to install ...
when you run into issues such as these, and you are unsure on what to do, then just post the error you have received, and it will be alot easier to help you resolve your issue ...
as of the easy way to install things, the answer to that is, this is the easy way ;-)
when you understand how dependancies work, and what the errors are saying when you can't install something, then it won't be as bad, its just that you are just starting out, and these errors are throwing you for a loop, and your getting stuck... and believe me everyone has been there at one point or another ...
after we resolve these little issues, then you can look into something like urpmi or apt-get ... but until then i'd advise you to figure out these tarballs and rpms before jumping into an app such as those mentioned, without you gaining the knowledge of how these things work ... but again thats up to you

Thanks much for your help guys.
I reinstalled Mandrake and set my user to use the sh instead of bash.
This proved to work when I tried installing aMSN earlier.
Now I am up and running.

I still don't know the difference between the sh and the bash but I'll try to get some documentation on it.
If you can point me in the right direction I'll be glad to look at the material.

Thanks much, good night.
Teo