Ubuntu

As a rule of thumb?

Asked by george_rutkay

AS a rule of thumb for all people NEW to Linux of any kind, it is always best to install all updates/softwares/etc....logged in as "Root" user?

Is there some kind of unwritten rule about this?

I'm just curious because the power of the "Root" account has to exist for some good reason and it seems sensible to me that conducting upgrades, installations, etc.....on a Linux system would be guarded if they could only be conducted as "Root" user.

Please advise?

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#1

As a rule of thumb, never run your operating system as a root user or administrator. It's too easy to muck things up. I suppose root accounts exist for people who work as system administrators and such. Desktop users should not be working in root mode. Look at all the problems that caused with Windows.

Because Ubuntu is targeted at desktop users, it disables the root account by default. Instead, in order to do system maintenance you use the "sudo" command. I've heard a couple meanings for this and not sure which is correct but both get the idea across: Switch User and DO or Super User DO. They may both be wrong. In any case, you use sudo when you need to "become" root. Whenever you need to do something as root you will be asked for your password. By default, only the first user (the one set up during install) has sudo powers. You can give other users that power too.

For more information check out:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

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