its not really a good idea to go chmod -R'ing, and to be honest not worth it, for the amount of time it takes to su, cp/ln, exit. and some files need to be owned by root so copying them there as a different user wont work. and dont forget the security risks involved, ask yourself why linux viruses are almost non-exidtent. chown would probably be a better(not much though) option than chmod. but anyway

dont go chmod -R'ing anything with a bin/sbin directory in it. dont add executable permissions to non executable files - this has the possibility of making autocomplete an absolute nightmare. avoid /var, /home, /tmp, /etc, /dev. apart from that you should be ok - dont quote me on that i could have easily forgotten something.

if there are readonly areas you write to regularly, then consider putting the actual files somewhere else and symlink the directory to where it should be, thats a much neater solution

you mentioned security- maybe i got hacked or somethin the first time around....it seems to be up in the air as to why my root password didnt work, because i KNOW i didnt touch it..it all went downhill in one terminal window

yow!

ill definately heed your advice about takin it easy on chmod....prior to this incident i used the root account for 100% of everything i did, and was in the process of switching to a user account because i had everything set up how i wanted it to be, despite everythin i'd read about steering clear of the root account unless very necissary.

i guess its safe to say i only learn things the hard way :-P

later!