I think we are saying the same things here, but in different ways. I don't normaly log in as root, or even "su -". I do most things as a normal user. About the only things I use root for are when I am playing with udev rules, testing disaster recovery programs, or installing software. Unfortunitly, root is required there.Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
There are some added protections to make doing that even harder now. When you type "rm" from the command line, you are actualy running "rm -i" thanks to a handy alias. So you would be asked to confirm every deletion. When you get asked about the first one, hit Ctrl-c, and it will abort the command.
Yes, isn't Linux (especially Mandrake) just wonderful?
Not that you want to be logged in as root, unless you realy need to for what you are doing. But it is harder to break things then it used to be. There are still a lot of things you can do as root that will break the system.
Mikkel
It's a bit bit like walking on thin ice, isn't it?
As a general rule, one should "su" to root only when it is absolutely necessary. I am a reformed root user. What I mean by that is that I always used to log in as root at home, because I never had to worry about permissions on devices, directories, etc. It was a form of laziness. I did this for years, but lately I have got into the habit of trying to make things work as a normal user.
(I still run xmms and k3b as root, though. Probably laziness.)
cheers Duncan
Disaster recovery testing has the biggest potential for disaster, because I am doing things like wiping the partition table, and trying to recover it. I guess I could set up a way to do that as a normal user, but I don't realy want to - that scares me more then logging in as root. But then, a normal user shouldn't be able to do the things I am doing during testing anyway. That is what I mean be "realy need to".
Mikkel --
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
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