Linux newbi question

[millwalll]

Hi all,

I am pretty new to linux and have a few question so thought I would post them all here.

1.How can I change a user privilages so if I want a user to be able to read and write to any files how would this be done ?

2. Are there any alternatives to samba I know its probley the best but would be nice to know about others?

3.Are there any alternatives to YAST ?

That is about it for now many thanks :P

[techieMoe]

1.How can I change a user privilages so if I want a user to be able to read and write to any files how would this be done ?

You don't want to do this. I understand that coming from a Microsoft Windows world you think that you need the ability to read and write anywhere in your system, but you don't. Giving yourself complete administrator (root) access to do your regular everyday tasks is an immense security risk, and it also removes a very important safeguard against your own mistakes.

Most Linux users (from the new to the old hat) use root access only once in a while for very specific tasks and a regular user account for everything else. What, specifically, are you trying to do that makes you think you need root access?

2. Are there any alternatives to samba I know its probley the best but would be nice to know about others?

That depends on what you want to do. For simply swapping files between a Windows install and Linux on the same machine Samba isn't necessary. You could also FTP the files between computers or use a USB drive to move them from one to the other.

3.Are there any alternatives to YAST ?

Again, this depends on what you want to do. YaST is actually a collection of several tools. What part of YaST are you looking to replace? The program install/remove utility? The hardware configuration utility? The X configuration utility?

[millwalll]

You don't want to do this. I understand that coming from a Microsoft Windows world you think that you need the ability to read and write anywhere in your system, but you don't. Giving yourself complete administrator (root) access to do your regular everyday tasks is an immense security risk, and it also removes a very important safeguard against your own mistakes.

Most Linux users (from the new to the old hat) use root access only once in a while for very specific tasks and a regular user account for everything else. What, specifically, are you trying to do that makes you think you need root access?

it was more general question in that case what advantage does root have over another user account that has been created?

That depends on what you want to do. For simply swapping files between a Windows install and Linux on the same machine Samba isn't necessary. You could also FTP the files between computers or use a USB drive to move them from one to the other.

ok i thought the whole purpose of samba was for the reason above sharing files from linux to windows.

Again, this depends on what you want to do. YaST is actually a collection of several tools. What part of YaST are you looking to replace? The program install/remove utility? The hardware configuration utility? The X configuration utility?

it was more general question in that case what advantage does root have over another user account that has been created?

ok i thought the whole purpose of samba was for the reason above sharing files from linux to windows.

all of it just want to know if there were alternatives.

[techieMoe]

it was more general question in that case what advantage does root have over another user account that has been created?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Root is god, pretty much. Your Linux system will take any command you tell it when logged in as root user and execute it with pretty much no questions asked. It's entirely possible to destroy your operating system with one command in Linux if you're logged in as root user.

A regular user on the other hand only has access to files in their personal home directory by default. This limits the amount of damage (accidental or otherwise) those users can do to the system. The worst case scenario (deleting everything) would only impact that one user.

That's not to say you won't ever need to use root privileges on your own system. However when you need to tweak something in a system directory you can do so using other methods (su, sudo, etc.) that will limit your access to that one action, therefore helping prevent any catastrophic problems.

ok i thought the whole purpose of samba was for the reason above sharing files from linux to windows.

Yes, but Samba is specifically for sharing files between two or more computers on a network. If you're just talking about two installations on the same PC, there are easier ways to do it. There are also other ways to share between two or more computers, as I mentioned earlier.

all of it just want to know if there were alternatives.

For adding/removing packages there's programs like Synaptic and command-line tools such as yum. For configuration programs... not really sure about that one. There are certainly alternatives to the SuSE distribution itself if you don't like YaST. That's unique to them.

[millwalll]

Hi thanks that pretty much answer my question one more question let say a file was locked down to a user how could he use the sudo command to access it ??

would it be like sudo -l root cd dir name ?

[techieMoe]

Hi thanks that pretty much answer my question one more question let say a file was locked down to a user how could he use the sudo command to access it ??

would it be like sudo -l root cd dir name ?

I'm not sure what you mean by "locked down to a user." If you mean the permissions on a file were such that only that user could view/delete/modify the file, then you could change that with chmod. If you were a regular user (and not the owner of the file) you would need root privileges to do this, so the command would be something like:

sudo chmod 777 someFileName

If you're unfamiliar with the way chmod works, I'd recommend reading up on it. Basically the 777 designation says "let anyone, anywhere in any group read/write/delete this file." Different combinations allow more granular permissions for only one user, only one group, etc.

[millwalll]

thanks a lot

[Bemk]

If you want information about a specific command, you can type:

man [command]

which will display a man page. It shows you the syntaxes and what it does.