On Tue, Jun 14, 2005 at 10:36:29AM +0200, Philipp Pagel wrote: > > Same here - I am the only user of my laptop. Still, I really do not want > to do my normal work as root because of security. As normal user I don't > have the power to destroy the system and even more important - the > programs I run do not have root access - so an evil browser plugin or > Openoffice crash cannot harm the system. One of the reasons why viruses > and worms spread so quickly on Windows systems is that most users work > with administrator privileges. > > If I need root access I use sudo (and less ofter su). And I really only > need to become root for things like system upgrades or configuration of > new hardware. So I don't see a problem having to type the password on > these rare occasions. >
Agreed. Using root should not be taken lightly. For machines to which I have root access, I have setup my prompt so that it is white text on a red background. My $PS1 is '\[\e[41;1m\]\h:\w\$ \[\e[0m\] '. That way I know instantly that I am in a root shell. If you want some motivation for implementing such a scheme, then go and read some stuff on bash.org about the dumb things people have done because they forgot they were in a root shell. -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://familiasanchez.net/~sanchezr
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