[GRLUG] root on Fedora 15

[Bob Kline]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 3:20 PM, Eric Beversluis <
ebever at researchintegration.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 2011-09-22 at 15:12 -0400, Bob Kline wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Kyle <dontwantspam1 at earthlink.net>
> > wrote:
> >         -----Original Message-----
> >         >From: Eric Beversluis <ebever at researchintegration.org>
> >         >Sent: Sep 22, 2011 2:48 PM
> >         >To: grlug at grlug.org
> >         >Subject: [GRLUG] root on Fedora 15
> >         >
> >         >Well after all my trials with getting my new Lenovo x120e
> >         running I've
> >         >ended up with Fedora 15, which seems to be working nicely.
> >         >
> >         >One problem tho: I'm used to opening gedit from the command
> >         line root
> >         >prompt so I can edit root-permission files (don't use vi
> >         often enough to
> >         >remember the commands). But Fedora 15 won't let me do that.
> >         >
> >         >"
> >         >[root at localhost eric]# gedit
> >         >
> >         >(gedit:20435): EggSMClient-WARNING **: Failed to connect to
> >         the session
> >         >manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are
> >         supported
> >         >
> >         >g_dbus_connection_real_closed: Remote peer vanished with
> >         error:
> >         >Underlying GIOStream returned 0 bytes on an async read
> >         >(g-io-error-quark, 0). Exiting.
> >         >Terminated
> >         >"
> >         >
> >         >No problem, I thought. I'll just log in as root. But Fedora
> >         15 won't let
> >         >me do that either. I keep getting "authentication failed"
> >         when I try to
> >         >do that.
> >         >
> >         >So what's a guy to do? In the time I lost figuring this all
> >         out I could
> >         >have dug out a vi cheat sheet and done what I needed to do.
> >         But I don't
> >         >want to do that each time I need to edit a root-owned
> >         document.
> >         >
> >         >Thanks.
> >         >
> >         >
> >
> >         >--
> >         >This message has been scanned for viruses and
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> >         >
> >         >_______________________________________________
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> >         >grlug at grlug.org
> >         >http://shinobu.grlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/grlug
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >         Try "su -" instead of "sudo su".
> >
> >         - Kyle
> >
> >
> > What does that do?
> >
> >
> >    -- Bob
>
> That seems to have worked. (Use su - to switch to root and then call
> 'gedit'. Some subtle diff between 'su' and 'su -', but I don't remember
> what it is.
>

Curious.  The "su" man page suggests
that running su is not same as logging in
as root directly, but that "su -"  is.

"su" gives you root privileges, but not
the full environment of logging in as root.
Tried both ways, PATH is slightly different,
for example?

Having always used "su" to do root
related things, other than trial and error,
when should one use "su -" instead?

    -- Bob


> Neither 'gksudo' nor 'gksu' are recognized as commands by Fedora 15. Is
> that just a Ubuntu thing?
>
>
>

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