Re: How to suppress the annoying warning message for gmc??

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom idecnet com>]

orsingerc@epg-gw1.lewis.army.mil (2000-08-21 at 1221.57 -0700):
<RANT IGNORE="at-will">
> > The "su" command is for logging in as root... Why do you need to run X
> > and gmc and all the gnome applications as root though?
>         The two tasks I nearly always need to use a GUI-based
> root login to accomplish are compiling a new version of the kernel
> and figuring out how to install complex new software or hardware.
> Sometimes "su" is good enough for these things, but there are times 
> when you just waste too much time "su"ing and setting up a proper
> environment for root. In those cases I just log out of an ordinary
> user account and login as root.

There is a better solution: have a console always open, where you
type "/bin/su - root". But remember to mark it as such: different
desktop, different colors, whatever that calls your attention. No
need to su in and out like mad.

> > It's a shame if that warning is now disableable... If I had written that
> > code, it would've shown the message then quit if UID==0 ;-)
>         Like I said, if you want to keep fools out of root, don't
> give them the password. For anyone else, certainly anyone who has
> any business being a system administrator, the first few warnings 
> should be enough.

A home user is his own admin. And most of them will fuck the system
like in Windows, and do not care at all cos they believe is normal and
there is no other way to do it. It is like all those guys that install
a new app and reboot, when most of times you do not need at all. The
right way is to spread the right methods, not just warn and let the
life go wrong.

Only root user should have the root password, OK. I do that at Univ,
none of the roots share password with others, but we all know how to
break in other machines (leaving traces or doing lot of work not to,
aka reboot, clearing BIOS password). I guess that other places, the
measures would be even stronger (I am speaking about club machines).
But home users...

>         Actually, one alternative would be to have a root environment
> that does not include mc or gmc - say a command like: 
>         gnome-session --without-mc
>         or something like that. This would give an administrator
> the ability to do most of what he'd be doing in a root account,
> and would probably avoid alot of the dangers you're concerned
> about.

Yes! And another --demo-root-is-bad and --root-complain. The first to
'demo' what "rm -rf . /" does (note the spaces) and the second for
showing a big smile while playing a loud laugh and "You break it!",
usefull in the reinstall. Also, if possible, mail everyone in your
mailbox with "I fucked my system cos I ran as root" shame mail. ;]

root is the root of all problems. ;P

root should be treated as fire, you can use it, but right. You do not
go burning things, cos you will buy new ones if they do not resist,
you use fire, not play with it (circus not covered by this rule). Of
course, some people need to feel the burn to learn.
</RANT>

GSR