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Re: Several questions.

Nayyar Ahmed wrote:


On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 08:38:14 -0500, Kent West <westk@acu.edu> wrote:

spencer ward wrote:


Hi,
Last week I installed Debian for the first time
and now I would like to update my system.
My first question is when I try to sign on
in the debian gui pop up I get the message
that root can't use that window to sign on.
Why is that and how can I over come that?



Debian doesn't let you do this because it's a bad idea, security-wise.
However, if you insist on it, you can reconfigure the security settings
in your GUI login. You don't mention which GUI login you're using, but
for example, if you're using KDE, you'd edit "/etc/kde[version
number]/kdm/kdmrc", and change the line:


NO ???/KDM/ directory in my system. ?
As I mentioned, "You don't mention which GUI login you're using", (and you still haven't), so KDM was just an example (although I mistyped "KDE" instead of "KDM"). If you're not using KDM, you won't have that directory.
So, are you using xdm, kdm, gdm, or wdm (or something else) as your GUI login manager? If you're not sure, do a "cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager".
And again, I'd recommend that you don't change this, and that you don't log into X as root. Instead, log in as a normal user, then run any root-needed commands with "sudo". Alternatively, if you insist on logging into X as root, then shut down your GUI login manager (with a command like "/etc/init.d/gdm stop"), then as root, start X manually with "startx". This way you're not enabling root to login via the GUI login manager (so you're not changing the default system behaviour), but you're still able to run X as root (still not recommended, but it's your box).
As I re-read your post, it sounds like the only reason you want to log into X as root is to update your system. Rather than log into X as root, here's some alternatives. 

1) Use sudo
   a. Install sudo
   b. use "visudo" to add yourself to the sudoers file
   c. log into X as your normal user
   d. open a terminal window
   e. update using sudo
e1. edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point to testing or unstable (i.e. "sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list") 
      e2. "sudo apt-get update"
      e3. "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade"

2) Use su
   a. log into X as your normal user
   b. open a terminal window
   c. "su -" to become SuperUser (root)
   d. update
      d1. edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point to testing or unstable
      d2. "apt-get update"
      d3. "apt-get dist-upgrade"

3) Update the box from outside of X
   a. Get out of X.
      a1. Press Ctrl-Alt-F2 while in X.
      a2. log in as root at the console in Virtual Terminal 2 (VT2)
   b. update
      b1. edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point to testing or unstable
      b2. "apt-get update"
      b3. "apt-get dist-upgrade"
Each of these three methods allows you to update your box without logging into X as root. 

--
Kent
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