Root Access

[Todd Zullinger]

Mike Dwiggins wrote:
> No problems at all about your comments.  My only question is, How
> does a new guy learn?  If there is a better way I am ready to hear
> it.  The problem is all I hear is "Never Log in as Root".  Those
> comments never address "How do I install a add-on from inside
> Opera?"  Just the unending mantra of Never Log in as Root"

That's a fair point. :)

In almost every case I can think of, you don't need to login as root
to achieve the task at hand.  In the Opera example, I would surely
think that you can start Opera as root from within a normal user's
login.  A command like "su -c 'opera'" should start the browser as
root and you could then install an add-on.  For a bit more
flexibility, sudo is also an option.  For some quick help in
configuring sudo, see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Configuring_Sudo.

(To be fair, I've never used opera, so I don't know whether it would
complain if started via su -c or not.  It might require su -l -c,
where the -l would run the command with root's environment, rather
than the user who called su.  I also don't know why opera would
require you to run the browser as root to install an add-on.  That
seems like something that could be improved -- though installing
Firefox add-on's system-wide isn't as easy as it should be either. :)

> Some of us are causal users who wander in from the Windows world!  I
> wish I could live in Linux but, that ain't gonna happen!
>
> I need to be able to log in as root to do my job!  I wish it were
> not so but, it is!  Life always fair!

I think some of that "need" might be based on the experiences you've
learned from in the Windows world.  I think it's very unfortunate that
Microsoft has done such a poor job of encouraging and allowing users
to run with the least privilege needed.  In trying to help my friends
and family who cling to Windows, I am regularly appalled at needing to
login to an account with admin privilege to perform some task.

In linux, I would only need to use su or sudo (or, in many cases, I'd
automatically be prompted for credentials when more privilege was
required).  For the most part, I think Fedora gets this right much
more often than Microsoft does.

I hope I've been at least somewhat helpful.  If you have troubles with
su or sudo or you find that some particular task seems to be difficult
or impossible to achieve without logging in as root, asking about it
on this list is likely to yield some interesting answers.

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The man who can make hard things easy is the educator
    -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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