Trouble Logging In as Root

[Carl Friis-Hansen]

Hi James,
thanks for your enlightenment  :-)
I just didn't want to scare the OP with too much detail

>
> On 09/11/2008, at 6:44 PM, Carl Friis-Hansen wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Carl, I'm not trying to single you out dude, just wanted to use the
> opportunity to provide an object lesson in how passwords are handled
> in Linux (and most Unix versions too).  It's a trivial nit-pick of
> wording, and I agree with the rest of your post.  When I first started
> using Ubuntu (having been a Unix admin since 1994 on Solaris/True64/HP-
> UX/AIX...and Linux) I thought "no root login...WTF?!?!" - but I
> thought I'd give it a chance anyway.  Having got used to the whole
> "sudo way", I can't see why people persist with setting a root
> password on desktop systems etc.  You want a root shell - "sudo -i".
> You want to do something as root - "sudo <something>".  You want to
> run a GUI app as root - "gksudo <GUIapp>" or "kdesu <GUIapp>"...voila!
</snip>

I know I am to be singled out. I started with UNIX in 1982 on Tektronix
and Philips systems when I developed electronic control systems for wind
turbines. The UNIX machine had 2MByte of RAM (sheep) as far as I remember
- wow.

-- 
Carl Friis-hansen