Getting Started and...

Getting Started and Choosing a Distro RSS

New to Linux

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Join Date: Apr 2004

Posts: 759

Reputation: Killer_Typo will become famous soon enough

Solved Threads: 35

Killer_Typo Killer_Typo is offline

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Re: New to Linux

#31

Jun 15th, 2004

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Originally Posted by kc0arf

Hello,

I hope you created a second user, and am not running around as root doing everything. If you are, it is time to slow down, and start using a normal user account instead of the God account.

If you were to catch a bug, or malicious program, and you are running root, you can torpedo your box. One of the big features of Linux security is NOT to run normal programs as root.

IN the windows world, you almost always need to be a member of the Administrators group in order to do things. Not the case in Linux.

Christian

first thing i did was create an account so that im not the root user, i have to enter a password to change anything associated with that stuff.

Dont forget to spread the reputation to those that deserve!

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Join Date: Dec 2003

Posts: 6,439

Reputation: DMR will become famous soon enough

Solved Threads: 362

DMR

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Wombat At Large

Re: New to Linux

#32

Jun 15th, 2004

Yup- that's the safe way to do it.

BTW- if you use the "su" comand to become root when logged in as normal user:

The su command by itself does not give you a full root login shell (I'll skip the specifics right now- just trust me), which you will need to perform certain root-level tasks. In order to gain a full root shell without logging out and then logging back in as root, use the " - " option with the su command:

su -

You'll still be asked for the root password, but once you do that you will have full root godliness.

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