privileges problems
 

i just installed slackware with a full install, im using gnome 2.6 and i'm having a few issues that i think concern user privileges:

1. when im logged in as root, i cant use screensavers it says that the screen saver daemon did not start up properly and that it is probably because i'm logged in as root and that the screen saver couldnt access my root server because access control is turned on. this presents a problem because sometimes i might be in the middle of doing something important as root and dont wanna log out but i have to go to the bathroom or something and then somebody could walk right in and mess with my system.

2. i have been told that it's not a good idea to just use the root account for general use, so i want to make an all purpose account for myself that would have enough privileges to do everything except the things that could really screw up my system. i dont know how to do this, when i make an account for myself, i have problems running certain programs that i can run as root, like mozilla and galeon. Basically: how do I assign privileges to an account and what privileges do you think i should allow/deny my account?

1. There is no reason to be doing everything as root.

2. adduser
It will walk you through creating a user account. User accounts are to do things with user permissions.
The root account is for administrative work. You su to it
su -
Enter root password.

Also there are default groups created to access certain devices without putting them in "danger". IE: audio, cdrom, disk
Adding that user you create to those groups will be better than chmoding the devices. To do that, just open /etc/group and add the user at the end of the line. If there are two users separate them with a ,

i know, but when im a regular user, i cant run mozilla, galeon, and several other programs that run fine when i run them as root. how can i make them work as a regular user? i dont have write permissions for things like bookmarks if i use su and i dont want to do everything as root

Try upgrading mozilla or using firefox, there was a known problem with the default mozilla shipped in Slack 10 that it couldn't be used as a normal user and browsers that depends on it were affected too.
You can search this forum (this has been talked a lot) to see if there was a solution to this, as far as I remember, there isn't.

oh, thats the problem then i guess. i still wanna find out about that screen saver issue as root because sometimes its just easier to login as root and do administrative stuff and if i need to lock the screen in the middle of some work, i'd like to be able to do it.

Install vlock It will lock the terminal.

ok, that sounds good... one more question: what groups should i put my general account in? i put it in wheel and gave wheel sudoers access, but is that all i need or do i have to have it in the floppy and cdrom and mysql groups in order to use those things without sudo?

To access floppy and cdrom add it to the disk group.
About mysql, well, the best and normal way is to create a database for your user.

Look in /etc/group to get an idea what groups you need to be in. Some distros have like an audio group and some don't.

so you assign priveliges using groups? is it possible to make your own group and assign priveliges to it another way?

addgroup command
man addgroup
Then add users to group with the usermod command.


You can then change the group ownership of files and directories. But I wouldn't go changing group ownership of system files and directories. You could mess things up.

ok, thanx