Another reason to prefer a real root over sudo

[Chris G]

On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 10:06:21PM +1300, Mark Kirkwood wrote:
> Steve Lamb wrote:
> > Chris G wrote:
> >   
> >> OK, it's not a disaster and there are several ways around the issue, I
> >> could give my wife's account sudo privileges or I could use apt-get from
> >> the command line (having changed user to me).  However none of them is
> >> particularly covenient and it's a pain if I want to install something
> >> to fix an immediate 'on screen' problem.
> >>     
> >
> >     None of them is convenient?  Copying one freaking line in sudoers and
> > changing the username is beyond the pale!?  Cripes, man, get real!
> >
> >   
> Agreed - does seem that (sorry Chris) you have missed the whole point of 
> sudo  - certain *users* have 'admin'  rights on the machine, and certain 
> do not. If you are logged in as a user w/o such you have to either log 
> in again or give that user admin rights... pretty easy stuff either way.
> 
> The issue with 'real' root is that you will have to pass around 
> *another* password - that in most cases will get written down - as non 

No I don't and neither do 99% of home users, there is only one user.

OK, in the case in question there are two users but it's hardly a case
of having to "pass around" another password.


> geek computer users will typically struggle to remember an additional 
> one. This will tend to *decrease* your overall security.
> 
I agree - in a multi-user environment.  Nearly all of the arguments
here *for* using sudo make absolute sense in a multi-user situation
where it's useful to know who has done what and to allow different
users to have different provileges.

In the typical home environment a computer has only one user.

-- 
Chris Green