antiX-forum

(Guess that about says it all.)

Don

diesel,
Type nogui at grub screen > enter
Enter root & password at the resulting prompt
Type startx > enter

eriefisher wrote:You shouldn't need to login as root. Everything can be done with su or sux.

True -- I shouldn't need to but I want to be able to. I HATE a distro that assumes that the user is too stupid to handle a root login.

I did a work-around by invoking root in terminal and then launching Rox. I was moving lots of files from a memory stick to /var/www/ and didn't want to play around with terminal when one drag/drop would do.

dieselbenz

I agree with you 100%, as long as you are aware of the implications of logging in as root, it is fine and sometimes necessary to avoid constant su logins.

After all, surely Linux is about choice, and if you choose to run as root, that's ok by me!

rayburn wrote:dieselbenz

I agree with you 100%, as long as you are aware of the implications of logging in as root, it is fine and sometimes necessary to avoid constant su logins.

Yea, I know my way around the kitchen when it comes to working in root. In fact, I was configuring a new web server when the need for root raised its ugly head.

That is one thing I like about PCLOS -- it gives you all the tools and lets you decide which you want to use.

I knew how to enable root logins under KDE -- just couldn't figure out how to do it in antiX.

I haven't tried it recently, but I think you can switch consoles to a non-graphical one, then log in as root and do a startx. This saves having to reboot. Another possibility is to Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to exit X, then log in.

anticapitalista wrote:Hey, dieselbenz, antiX does give the option to login as root (as moron explained) so it is not assuming the user is stoopid.

Personally, I prefer to login as user, open a terminal, su(x) to root and keep that terminal open if I have lots to do as admin user, using rox for drag and drop.
Once finished, close the terminal, no need to logout/login again.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

I wasn't criticizing antiX -- I was more poking a sharp stick into Warren's eye for deciding that root login would be disabled by default. I always go by the assumption that the user is smarter than the developer anticipates (though sometimes the user learns by reloading the OS).

You can login as root in mepis; I did it just a couple of weeks ago. I "lost" an external usb hard drive; the permissions got all messed up. If I had been smart though, I could have found the drive and fixed the permissions without a root login.

I think the problem logging into antiX as root is with the slim login manager; at least that's my understanding.

mariel77 wrote:You can login as root in mepis; I did it just a couple of weeks ago. I "lost" an external usb hard drive; the permissions got all messed up. If I had been smart though, I could have found the drive and fixed the permissions without a root login.

I think the problem logging into antiX as root is with the slim login manager; at least that's my understanding.

I am apparently not being very clear about my issue.

PCLOS and other distros offer the option of logging in as root -- when you sign in. Yes, there are ways to log in as root on the Debian distros but it isn't obvious and requires some knowledge of how to do so.

I don't see this as something being "fixed" from my posts, nor should that be the case. I am simply saying that it is an annoyance -- but certainly not enough for me to dump Mepis (my primary laptop) or antiX (my laptop server) in favor of something else. I do have PCLOS running on my garage laptop but that is for hardware reasons. And I run Ubuntu 8.04 on my wife's laptop, because she is used to it and doesn't want me to mess with her "working system."

I was more poking a sharp stick into Warren's eye for deciding that root login would be disabled by default.

I have to push this because of your statement above:
In Mepis, root is one of the choices for logging in. All I have to do is click the little root login icon and type my root password. It is not disabled in Mepis. Warren has nothing to do with the lack of easy root login in antiX. Mepis uses kde to login and antiX uses slim; again, it is slim that doesn't allow root login.

anticapitalista wrote:Mariel is right Don. MEPIS does give you the option to login as root at the KDE login screen, just like PCLOS.
Debian and others that use kde login have it disabled, but not MEPIS.

Because antiX uses slim login manager, the only way to allow root login from boot was to disable slim at the grub menu. ie the nogui cheatcode.

Yes, my error. Noticed that this morning when I logged in. Mepis is so stable that I only occasionally shut down my laptop and have to log back in, and only shut down by choice rather than because I have to (unlike Windows).

The issue of root logins really becomes a moot issue most of the time. If you are really astute, you can change most things provided by a distro. An astute user/administrator can modify a system any way they choose.

I remember an old Lindows.com system that had ONLY root user, but pretty decent protections on root. People howled about root user access. Well, that was REALLY EASY to change - create user accounts, then change group access to programs and objects to allow ordinary user access.

The reverse may seem complicated, but it is possible as well. However, depending on how deeply a feature is engineered into a system or distribution, it may take more effort than it is worth. For experimentation's sake, I have fiddled and faddled with such things before. As far as which approach to take, it matters little to me. These days I use most systems for Email and browsing at least 50% of the time, but frequently 75% or more of the time. Therefore I have less time to twiddle. That is where SimplyMEPIS and Arch come in extra handy - they are good and ready to go, but I feel that they are extensible. I have already taken one antiX system and turned it into a Sid hybrid with sidux tools. Still works like good old antiX - fast, still pretty stable, quick to start, easy to maintain, yet flexible.

That's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it!