Regarding Shutdown
 

A few years ago a friend installed RedHat 5.2 and I am now just learning about it. I boot from a disc and know of no root password (and would like to). Upgading would be nice but I am not sure all is well as is.

Login as a user is straightforward. The "Shutdown" command returns "bash: shutdown: command not found". But shutdown is in /sbin and the command "/sbin/shutdown now" returns "shutdown: must be root". Is there no way to shutdown as a user? This sounds like a Microsoft tactic - ;). If I must be logged in as root is there any way to set a new password as I have seen explained for those who boot from the LILO prompt?

If I could shutdown I would feel well on my way. Thanks.