Another reason to prefer a real root over sudo

[Carl Friis-Hansen]

Chris G wrote:
> 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.
> 

Except in the many cases where both parent and children use the same 
computer. Even on M$ parent give their children less privileged logins.

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