Re: File manager tree.

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

bob@kehs.ksd.org writes:

> exactly. Why is GMC complaining about being root? It would make sence for
> a small program be written for that. That program can be made into a
> wizard for creating acounts and doing other quick root stuff for users
> that dont know what they are doing.

The point of the warning is not that running as root
is bad. (OK, it is), but that running GMC as root
is bad. It is extremely easy to make a slip of the
fingers and end up with /usr inside of /etc or
some such problem.

That's why the warning is in GMC. If you select 
exit from the commands menu in GMC, and then save
your session on logout then you won't get a GMC when you 
log in in the future as root, and won't see the message.

Microsoft added some checks into Explorer to try
and keep you from foobar'ing your system with
Explorer - it will warn you if you try to delete
things within system folders.

It's not clear what the equivalent would be on
an operating system with real permissions. Perhaps
GMC just needs a mode where it will ask for 
confirmation on all file operations. But, in any
case, without some sort of safety checks, people 
definitely need to be warned that running GMC
as root is not safe.

Regards,
                                Owen