[GRLUG] Distro's - was GRLUG test comment

[adderd at kkmfg.com]

And you think you are the only one getting perturbed here. ;-)

The point is that Ubuntu's setup is not appreciably different than a
normal setup. The first user in ubuntu might as well be root because they
can be root anytime they feel like it. It's sort of pointless to consider
them a normal user because they have been turned into root by the easy
access that sudo allows them. Not that there is anything wrong with that
though... It just means that there isn't much point in changing the status
quo. The traditional multiple or single normal users and one root setup
works just as well. If you need to do something extraordinary you just su
to root. In fact, I run Arch linux and it will ask for the root PW if you
have to do something that requires root (well, in X anyway). So that is
exactly like how Ubuntu operates except that there is a root account and
you give that password instead of your own.

Sudo IS better than su because it's more configurable, etc, etc, etc. But
nine times out of ten anyone installing ubuntu is not going to need any of
that extra functionality. I'm not saying that sudo should not be
available. It should. It is just that Ubuntu's configuration really
doesn't make that much sense.

Also, please feel free to remove the dense cellulose from within your
lower colon. ;-)


> On 5/4/06, David Pembrook <david at pembrook.net> wrote:
>
>> I don't think anyone here that was complaining about the sudo setup on
>> ubuntu was advocating running the system as root for normal use. Don't
>> put me in that group (always running as root). Anyone that has the least
>> inkling of what one of the core problems with windows is, understand the
>> working as root problem.
>
> Yet you imply - heavily - that any user on an Ubuntu system can issue
> commands such as rm -rf with disastrous consequences.  Which is
> patently untrue.  They would need to use sudo to do so, which requires
> just as much effort, foreknowledge, and configuration as using su to
> do the same thing.
>
> --tim
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