[PLUG] Stupid newbie file permisions question

[Paul Johnson]

John Jason Jordan (johnxj at comcast.net) wrote:
> Today I must have typed su and my password at least a hundred times.

It's su followed by *root* password, not yours.  Root and your normal user
also should not have the same password.

> I tried everything, but can't figure out how to give myself permission
> to see those files in the Nautilus file manager window. I typed su and
> my password in a command line, but Nautilus remains unimpressed.

su only affects the shell you're currently in, not the desktop environment.

> OK, in Windows I am user jjj, but I am also the Administrator account.

Which is just as bad as running as root, since Administrator gives you the
same privleges as root in that environment.  You shouldn't run as
administrator.

> During Windows 2000 installation it creates the Administrator account
> and you have to create a password for it. Then you can create a user
> account to use for ordinary daily work. But when I created the jjj
> account I gave it administrator privileges. Now jjj can do anything on
> that machine that Administrator can do.

Congratulations, you've created a second root account and you're logging in as
root.  Setting up a second account to do daily stuff in with administrator
privleges negates any and all security benefit gained by setting up a user
account.  (And people wonder why Windows users spread so many viruses...)

> On this Linux machine I am root and I am also jjj. I just spent the past
> hour and a half reading about ACLs, but none of it made any sense to me.
> Plus finals are coming up in three weeks and I'm running out of time.
> How can I give jjj permanent root permission?

DONT!

-- 
Paul Johnson
Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): baloo at ursine.ca
http://ursine.ca/~baloo/