fedora-list Digest, Vol 19, Issue 72

William W. Austin waustin at speakeasy.net
Mon Sep 12 02:59:29 UTC 2005


On 2005-09-09 14:14:17 Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-09-09 at 12:16, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
> 
> > > I install FC4 with KDE; when I login with "root" and password I
> > > receive this message: "Root logins are not allowed".
> > > I can login only via ssh (root + psw).
> 
> > Do not graphically login as root! This is not allowed by default
> > for
> > good reasons. There should be no real reason to do so. Logged in as
> > mortal user you always can start applications as root if needed.
> 
> It's always fun to see how competing developer opinions work out,
> like someone writing the passwd program to not accept piped input
> because he had 'good reasons', then someone else writing expect
> so a script could push input through a pty as a workaround,
> making things much more complicated than necessary.  Is there
> a similarly warped workaround for people who only log in to do
> operations that must be done as root or do they just avoid KDE?

Probably they do what a lot of people do.  Set the default run level
to 3, log in from an ASCII console and then run startx.  Even root
can do this with no problems.

Setting the run level at a default of 3 actually has other advantages
(like being able to see all those "hidden" error messages when
something goes seriously wrong and a graphical login won't work.

My favorite pleasure from setting the default run level to 3 is
watching people who are apparently terrified of having an ASCII
login prompt without all the pretty graphics. :-)  Sometimes I
even recommend a good nerve tonic, say something by Miller or
Bud or ... well, I prefer a good Mosl actually.

Just my $0.02 worth.

That and never trust a mailer that thinks it's smarter than you are.

-- 
william w. austin                               waustin at speakeasy.net
      "have you bitten your Airedale today?  sorry.  wrong list."





More information about the fedora-list mailing list