PS Re: VVDQ : Alpine on Ubuntu??

[Beartooth]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:43:56 +0000, Bernard Peek wrote:

> Beartooth Testbedder wrote:

[in response to a post by Peter Garrett] 

>> IOW, no matter what I do (gurux on my favorite LUG to the contrary
>> notwithstanding), the practice of typing 'sudo' and a password every
>> whipstitch is built in so deep there's no way to dodge it. Are you
>> saying that?

[To which Peter Garrett had written a pellucid reply, explaining that he 
was not, and adding lots of other good stuff.]
   
> Today Linux systems take two different approaches. One is to have a
> separate 'root' login that is only used when it is necessary to work
> with superuser capabilities. 

	(That's the one I'm used to, with several precautions which I 
won't detail here, if you consider "su - " a CLI form of login; I don't 
log out, and then log back in as root. -- rrn)

> The other is to use sudo when an ordinary user temporarily needs > 
superuser privileges. This is the option that Ubuntu has chosen.
> 
> When you install Ubuntu you create a login ID with a password. That
> login (and by default only that one) can enter the sudo command to
> execute a single command with superuser privileges. When you do that you
> are prompted to re-enter your normal password. Then for a limited time
> after that you can continue to add sudo in front of a normal command and
> have it executed with elevated privileges but without needing to enter a
> password again.
> 
> You only need to use the sudo command when you need to work with
> superuser privileges. The rest of the time you use your normal login and
> only have to enter your password at the beginning of a session. When you
> are first setting up a Ubuntu system you may need to spend some time
> tweaking it, and for that you may need superuser privileges quite a lot.
> But once you have the system running the way you want it you should need
> it less and less.

	What tipped my trigger was that it was requiring me to sudo 
ordinary nano -w commands : I could neither create nor edit my *own* 
files. Maybe sudo can be tweaked??

> For completeness I will add that there is another option, but it isn't
> recommended. You could enable the root login ID in Ubuntu and do all of
> your work while logged in as root. But you do that at your own risk.
> It's not necessary to do this and it definitely isn't recommended.

	That's the way I'd been doing it. N.B., however : I use it only 
in a gnome-terminal tab, and give CLI commands with it. If I understand 
Peter Garrett's post right this time, that way will be relatively 
harmless so long as I don't mistype commands.

	Fwiw, I'm now convinced enough, thanks to all the fine help here, 
to start over (with 7.10 this time), and give it another try, as I hope 
those of you in this thread will follow under the new thread "VDQ : 
Triple Boot Advice?" above, with follow-ups set to 
gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.general)

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Fedora 8; Alpine 1.0, Pan 0.132; Privoxy 3.0.6;
Dillo 0.8.6, Galeon 2.0.3, Epiphany 2.20, Opera 9.24, Firefox 2.0
Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.