Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
I'm absolutely a Linux newbie. I'm so excited after installing Fedora 10. My user account, rather than the root, works fine. Unfortunate, I can't log into the root even though I mistype nothing (surely not caplock-related problems). After several unsuccessful root-login's, I wipe out the whole HD and reinstall Fedora once again with the same root password. Currently, there hasn't been any successful root-login, and I am looking for an clue what I have done wrong. Thanks for your help.
As said above, root Graphical logins are disabled in Fedora 10. However for tasks that require you to be root in a graphical mode, I typically follow this method.
Add a custom application launcher button to the Gnome panel, set type as Application in Terminal, give some name, and 'sudo nautilus --no-desktop' as the command. Then clicking the button will open a terminal for your user password upon which you will be able to open Nautilus as root. Once you are here, you can do all typical graphical things like creation, deletion, copy, cut, paste, etc..
*Note: However, for this to work, you should have added your user name to the sudoers file beforehand.
You want to be careful to understand the difference between su and su -(su space dash). su gives you root's permissions but the user's path. su - gives you root's permissions and root's path. If you use just su you often get the response of blah blah not found. Personally I use su - exclusively to avoid any issues. As far as nautilus goes, you can su - , then type nautilus and you have root's nautilus(the same for any tool).
As said above, root Graphical logins are disabled in Fedora 10.
If you boot or switch into runlevel 3 (non-GUI), login as root ("non-graphically"), and then startx, you can use the X desktop as root on FC10.
This is a very very very stupid "security feature". Eventually fedora should just send a team of people over to pick up your computer since you are not responsible enough to use it
This is a very very very stupid "security feature". Eventually fedora should just send a team of people over to pick up your computer since you are not responsible enough to use it
Agree! Are Fedora becoming like Microsoft! Please don't!!!!!
You can enable graphical login for root quite easy: edit both /etc/pam.d/gdm and /etc/pam.d/gdm-password and comment out the line containing "!= root".
What if your default window manager is KDM? DO the same rules apply for this as well as GDM? I am no big fan of the Gnome Window Manager and always install/run KDE. But that is just my preference.
Distribution: Mandriva 2009 X86_64 suse 11.3 X86_64 Centos X86_64 Debian X86_64 Linux MInt 86_64 OS X
Posts: 2,369
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcipale
Niels,
What if your default window manager is KDM? DO the same rules apply for this as well as GDM? I am no big fan of the Gnome Window Manager and always install/run KDE. But that is just my preference.
If you look back there has been a post to this thread about every 4 months. Personally I would not put that into the category of dragging up old posts. Now if there was a year or more between posts, then I would put it in that category.
This general theme keeps coming back. Both Gnome and KDE have been moving away from permitting default root logins for a long time.
It's non-trivial to modify the config file to fix this, and has been discussed on linux questions repeatedly. It's not even distro-specific, really.
It's not that they should come and pick up your machine, it's that the users demand security and ease of use. If you are (or want to be) a power user, do some research and become one.
Linux has dropped a lot of 'unix-isms' to become more like Windows in order to gain market share. That's generally regarded as good. One of these is the crutch of using root to do everything. Some things still don't work properly via gksudo and the like, but they are trying.
One of these is the crutch of using root to do everything.
What???
One of the points of *nix is that only system services and the like should run as root. Apps should not, unlike MS....
Linux has not dropped *nixisms.
Ubuntu has decided to be non-std and automatically give the first non-root user full root powers via sudo.
That's not what sudo was invented for.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there - many actual Unix systems (like AIX, Solaris, HPUX, Tru64) still require the root user to perform the wide variety of daily tasks.
Solaris, for example - restarting a print queue or starting and stopping printing entirely requires root.
Managing space requires root.
Managing network interfaces requires root.
Managing hosts files and any form of config requires root.
Installing most system-wide software requires root.
Changing file ownership frequently requires root.
Configuring X (if used at all) requires root.
User management (even your own) requires root. Can't go tweaking your default shell without it.
Even network tools like ping can require root depending on the age of the OS.
These are not bad things, per se. They are just a holdover from an older mindset. A mindset where users stay in user directories and do user stuff, and the admins use root as needed for system config and system management. Now we use sudo and vanity accounts a lot more, but this is imported from the Linux universe.
The newest line of thinking is that root shouldn't be even running services if at all possible. OpenBSD is working on rootless X, for example. Apache 2 works hard to run in non-priv mode for almost everything. Jails are becoming very popular for running services.
Ubuntu does follow the Apple tradition of giving the initial user all(all) for sudo (or maybe it's Apple following Ubuntu or whatever).
This is better than nothing - and better than the PC-BSD default where the user is constantly bombarded with prompts for the root user's password to do any of the above tasks. Default behavior of BSD, for example, is that a user can't even run su, because they typically aren't in the wheel group.
Linux has made great strides in becoming more user friendly. If you want a comparison, go install an actual Unix like Solaris 8 or AIX 5 on a machine and knock yourself out. Most of the big Unix systems are actually starting to clone concepts from F/OSS projects like Linux and *BSD, which is making life a lot easier all around. Tools like lsof, gzip, ssh, and sudo are fantastic, and I know that I am grateful for them whenever I find them on a big box.
Last edited by MBybee; 10-27-2009 at 12:20 AM.
Reason: clarifying that SSH isn't from Linux ;)
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.