Shriramana Sharma wrote:
Paul Foerster wrote:
Sigh. I fully understand that I'm not supposed to play Frozen Bubble as root. I only wanted to know what's wrong with running a graphical environment as root. Does that need to come under so much heat from you techies?
Come on guys, cut me some slack. I'm not a geek like you - I'm an academic whose field is totally unconnected with Linux - help me out here. I'm trying to shift from Windoze to Linux, and if I ask a simple question out of my ignorance, you people start using words like "Why would you want to do something as STUPID as that?". If a small kiddie asks you why it's not safe to open the door to someone you don't know, do you shout at him and say "Why would you want to do something as STUPID as that?" At least *I* would explain to him that people we don't know can do bad things to us, and so it's not okay to open the door to them.
So I did learn something from asking this question: that X11 has a lot of security implications. But I would have liked to learn it without getting reprimanded for my ignorance.
Hello Shriramana. This is an ongoing problem with the Linux lists. You asked valid questions and got invalid answers. And ridicule. It's good advice to be aware of the security implications of working as root. The solution to me is: 1. Keep it to a minimum. 2. Use a firewall. Ditto for the posibility of deleting the wrong files or crashing your system. The solution I use is to: 1. Put my home directory in a seperate partition. 2. Have a set of installation disks handy when you try something new. (That also applies to root in text mode:-)) That way if you delete/crash an application or the entire OS, your personal files will be safe and you can install what you lost. Linux has tremendous possibilities on a PC. The learning curve can be tough at times. But enjoy the trip and good luck. Rich