[kwlug disc.] Doom 3 install permissions...

[R. Brent Clements]

Sudo lets you run a program with root privilages using your regular
login password (tho it is possible to create users that don't have
that ability obviously).  su will start a shell under a different
user--by default root--by specifying the root password.  if you are
root, you can use su to "log in" as any user without a password.  so
if you type "sudo su -" into your shell, it will ask you for your
password if you haven't typed it in in the last couple of minutes, and
the sudo program grants root permissions to the su program to create a
shell for the default user--root--and doesn't need the root password
to do it.

This idea of not setting a password for root is not universal in linux
yet, and if you want one, just type "sudo passwd root" and it
will--after verifying your login password, execute the password change
command as root without needing the password for root.  I beleive the
root password is set, but just to a completely random string during
installation.  Once you sucessfully run the passwd command as root, it
will have a password that you know, and you can log into it.  You may
still not be able to log in from the graphical login prompt as root,
though.  I don' know for certain.  The core developers and distro
makers mostly agree that a standard login as root is Bad(tm).

Brent

On 11/2/07, Kyle Spaans <3lucid at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/1/07, Erik Heyl <kwlinuxgroup at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'd log into root and do it there, but apparently it says I can't login as
> > root from the login screen...so as of right now I'm not too sure what to do
>
> Yup, that's a common thing. Ubuntu often doesn't set a root password,
> so logging in as root gets tricky. If you want to though, you can do
> something like "sudo passwd", which should create a password for root.
> Though you'll never really need to, since "sudo bash" like Bill and
> Chris suggest will always give you a root command shell.
>
> gl & hf
>
> P.S. - I've got Doom3 as well, I'll have to get it installed sometime,
> and maybe when I come back to KW in the Winter we can have a frag
> match at one of the meetings. ;)
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