permissions and my network
 

I am a fairly new user to linux and a new user to linuxquestions.org! i installed linux just a couple of months ago and i am learning pretty well. but i am confused about a couple of things

i am trying to use my user account for everything, but i am having some trouble running programs, installing and updating programs under my user account. it prompts me that 'only root can do that' but i am wondering if there is a way to make the user capable of doing those things without the need or being root. i have found that when i install some programs under root, it installs them fine, but puts everything under the owner and group name root. and when i try and run it under my regular user account, i can't.

is there any way to correct this? its very annoying loggin in as root to run my programs, like yum and such.

also, i have a small network problem that i can't figure out.

the internet seems to work excellent for a given time, then it seems to 'fade away' and i loose most of my connection. it doesn't seem like it wants to keep its integrity and as a result, downloads incredibly slow, and sometimes, does nothing at all and times out.

i would greatly appreciate any input or suggestions that anyone might have. i am very open to learn so type whatever you want!

You could use sudo, look at 'man sudo' and visudo.
But you don't need to login as root, just switch to root in a consol with 'su'
What I do is making my games-directory writeable for all users, world-writeable places are a security risk but I don't care about that. Not on Internet very much, not very anxious either.

About networking problems: Do you have a wireless network? I have no solution, but very many have problems with wireless connections, both in Linux & Windows. It's still a bit too new I think. Anybody have suggestions?

Thanks for the suggestions 'pingu'. i tired the su command, and that works great, but i still can't figure out how to do the simple stuff with my user account.

its kind of funny, i just tried emptying my trash can in my regular account, and it won't even let me do that. Any suggestions?? I'll try and do some things myself

Chances are that you somehow did something in
your normal user accounts directories while you
were root.

The easiest fix should be a (done as root)
chown -R <username> /home/<username>
chmod -R u+w /home/<username>


Cheers,
Tink

Tinkster, thanks for the commands! everything seems to be working fine for now. i appreciate the answer.

learning linux that much more.