Re: login as root to GUI
On Thu, 19 May 2011 12:17:54 -0400
Dick Bayerl <rjbayerl@ameritech.net> wrote:
> I am frustrated. I have tried installing both UBUNTU and DEBIAN with
> the same problem. I never can login to root so I can't make changes
> to various files. Not the owner. I am just now installing DEBIAN on
> a second machine and keeping careful notes about the password to see
> if that will work. I really like the idea of working with DEBIAN and
> hope I can get past this issue.
> Dick Bayerl
>
>
This isn't a problem with Ubuntu or Debian, it's a problem with
computers. Even Microsoft strongly discourages logging in anywhere as
root these days. You should not be logging into your Windows machines
with admin privileges, either.
As others have said, you login as an unprivileged user and use whatever
tool you need with su or sudo. That doesn't mean it's safe, of course,
as while you do these things you have root privileges, but it does
reduce the chance of trouble.
My preference is to open a console (command line window) and use sudo
to start mc. This is a simple but useful file manager with its own text
editor, and it will work for all but the most heavyweight file jobs. It
also allows typing of arbitrary commands as the mc user i.e. root. I
have a server which does not have a GUI, so I use this method there and
it seems reasonable to use it also on workstations.
--
Joe
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