how dangerous is running as root?

about every Linux book I see says its very dangerous to be logged on as root user in Linux. But then Ive heard there are some Linux distros where the user is always root. I honestly dont see how it can be dangerous, what are the chances that you will accidentally type something that would harm the system

Clearly Linux is not for you.

  Name: Anonymous : 2010-10-21 13:37

sum kinda haqur?

Considering your inability to punctuate, I'd say that you being a root would be calamitous to your system.

less of OP

here's a command that can accidentally harm a system:

mv

you have to try pretty hard to make su safe

>>1
Logging in as root is like removing the doors from your car and taking a drive without seatbelts.  It's fine if you don't ever make a mistake, and you can get in and out of the car much more quickly.  It saves time.

However, people hose systems all the time because of silly typos, file globbing that doesn't work the way you think, spaces that don't belong, because you're in a different directory than you thought, or because some file has a weird name (like "-rf").  And if I caught an employee browsing 4chan from a root account?  Bam!  Fired (because of the root thing, not because of 4chan).

Besides, a bunch of GUI applications will just pop up an error if you try to run them as root.  I'm not sure which distros you're talking about, maybe Linspire?

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Security/linspire-root.html

Heh, I once deleted the contents of /usr/bin this way.

I'm not sure which distros you're talking about, maybe Linspire?
actually puppy linux

>>9
Yeah, but Puppy Linux is like... something you put on a rescue disk, not something you install to your HD.  There's not much you can really screw up if the root filesystem is on read-only media.

<-- check em dubz

Don't change these.

Name:		Email:
Entire Thread Thread List