Root

From Mandrivausers Wiki

The root user of a system is the superuser or administrator and has special privileges and powers. Root has access to delete and modify files that normal users can't, and has the power to modify system configuration, add and delete users and so on. Most Linux systems are set up so that normal users have enough access to use the system, but not enough to modify (or damage) it. This helps to prevent accidental damage and restricts the ability of malicious software to affect the system.

[edit] Gaining root privileges

If a normal user needs to do something which normally only root can do, there are several possibilities (see Using Applications Needing Root Privileges) which allow limited access. Or if the user knows the root password, they can use the su command to "become" root in order to perform the task:

su

Once the job is finished, they can exit out of superuser mode and return to their normal user:

exit

Note that on some systems such as Ubuntu, there is no root user so the su command is not available. In this case the sudo command can be used instead.

[edit] Logging in as root

In Mandriva, logging into the desktop as root is disabled by default, for security reasons. It is generally not a good idea to log into the desktop as root because then all the desktop processes and all the applications run with full root privileges, opening up the risk of accidental or malicious damage. However, it's perfectly possible to log in as a normal user, and from the console to start GUI applications (such as Konqueror or the Mandriva Control Center) as the root user.

It's also possible to log into a full-screen console (Ctrl-Alt-F1 to Ctrl-Alt-F6) as root, or to boot into failsafe mode and log in as root there. However if you then start an X session, Mandriva will display a warning that running the desktop as root is not a very good idea.