Hi
Since this issue was being discussed within another thread, I tried to get more info on this.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/xsecurity.html
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Never, ever run X as root. The number of bad things that can happen, dramatically increases when logged in as root. Learn to run as much as possible as a regular user, and su to root only when needed. This may sound like a lot of extra work (and probably is at first), but once the "right"way of doing things is learned, it soon becomes second nature.
A brief anecdote from a friend: he had a client who's new system stopped "working". Curiously, he found the entire /dev directory was missing, which he re-installed and all was well again. He was back a few days later and found the system logged in as root to X, and someone had clicked on /dev in the file manager, and dragged it onto the desktop. Smooth move! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is pretty good advice for a newbie. Atleast the geeks can figure their way out of a mess, if they need to.
-- Warm Regards ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vinayak http://theregoesanotherday.blogspot.com/
On Thursday 17 Nov 2005 1:15 am, Vinayakam Murugan wrote:
Never, ever run X as root.
one nice thing about mandriva is that if you run X as root, repetition is disabled - if you keep a key pressed down, only one key stroke is recorded. This makes it a real pita to run X as root, and ppl stop doing it real fast.
Sometime on Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 10:10:03AM +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves said:
one nice thing about mandriva is that if you run X as root, repetition is disabled - if you keep a key pressed down, only one key stroke is recorded. This makes it a real pita to run X as root, and ppl stop doing it real fast.
Like all stupidity prevention features, there might be an option in mandriva to disable this also :)
Anurag
On Thursday 17 Nov 2005 11:29 am, Anurag wrote:
Sometime on Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 10:10:03AM +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves
said:
one nice thing about mandriva is that if you run X as root, repetition is disabled - if you keep a key pressed down, only one key stroke is recorded. This makes it a real pita to run X as root, and ppl stop doing it real fast.
Like all stupidity prevention features, there might be an option in mandriva to disable this also :)
a guy clever enough to disable this is too clever to do so - this is meant for customers
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Anurag -
Kenneth Gonsalves -
Vinayakam Murugan