On 15-May-2000 Cameron Matheson wrote: > Hey, > > I have two questions: > > What's the difference between typing 'su', and 'su root'? nothing, however there is a difference between 'su user' and 'su - user'. When the dash is used, it means to run that user's initialization files (.bashrc and the like). This is the same difference between you running commands in a shell script and at the terminal prompt.