A problem with su is that it looses you authority to run X apps. Even as root, you will get rebuffed trying to run something as innoculous as xclock. sux is a little suse script that allows you to su and still retain your connection to your X server. ie: you can su then run yast2 and get full graphical yast immediately. It's particuarily useful with headless or remote servers, ssh in and use X to display yast back on a comfortable workstation. Now with new enhanced 8.2 you can ssh in as yourself (not root), sux up to root and pull yast2 back to your local desktop. Wonderful, I hated leaving root logins allowed but needed it for just that reason. Apologies to everyone for whom this is old news, michaelj -- Michael James michael.james@csiro.au System Administrator voice: 02 6246 5040 CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility fax: 02 6246 5166