Newbie trouble: How to log on as "root"

[vw@geus.DK]

Hi Debians
I'm a newbie; just managed to boot my 486/66 (28 ram, 540 WD HD) onto Linux
late last night, and all seems to be well and good, only I can't install
anything. Dselect won't let me choose the access method to use (I'm
installing from the dos-partition, because the computer isn't connected to
the internet). 
What dselect does is: loads fine, no errors. When I choose "0" "Access"
<enter> it empties the screen and tells me this at the bottom: dselect:
unable to open/create access method lockfile: Permission denied and the
$-prompt.
My guess is: 1. I have to be "root" to do this
	        2. I could have set something wrong when assigning
privileges to (the one and only) user: me?!
How do I change from user to root when Linux by default asks for my "user"
password on startup?
Is it possible to change the user-privileges to allow me a large degree of
freedom within the system as "user" (suppose it is, but how?!)
I can't wait to exterminate my microsoft apps, and I'm really excited about
this, so I'm looking forward to your answers.

Regards
Vitux