How do i set myslef as administrator? or give me permissions

[haryy]

Well i just got done installing linux and this is the first time that i have ever used it. I know how to do a lot of stuff on windows but linux is a lot different to em so far. How do i set myself as admin so that i can have all permissions to do stuff? I cant creat a folder in teh root dir and thats what i want to do but i keep getting a permission denied error. So what can i do? thanks


-haryy

[genlee]

su -

That will log you in as root

[coshea120]

In order to write to the root directory, you have to be root. When you installed linux, you should have been prompted for a password for the root user (I think every distribution asks for the root password during the installation process, at least SuSE and Slackware do). I really hope you remember it or wrote it down. When you're at the login, type 'root' as the user name, and whatever that root password was as the password.

Now you're root, and can do _anything_ (so be careful).

To change permissions of files, check out chmod

hope this helps

[coshea120]

actually, genlee's answer is better than mine (that's why he's a guru, and i'm a newbie =] ). It's generally not a good idea to login as root unless you need to be. So logging in as a lower-privilege user, and su'ing to root when needed is probably better and safer.

congrats on 300 genlee

[Dolda2000]

NO! Don't log in as root, at least not in the gdm (X (GUI)) login. It will not only make you have two seperate configuration databases, it's also just generally wrong, it screws up logs and does all kinds of evil stuff.
Instead, if it is in a shell that you want root access, just run "su -", and you will get a subshell where you're logged in as root. If it is an X application that wants root privileges, it will usually ask for the root password these days.

[haryy]

So where do i type in "su -" at? in the termonal emulator? or what? sorry...but i am a complete newbie to linux.



-haryy

[Dolda2000]

Yes. When I refer to a shell, that is a terminal for most users. It need not be, though. That's why I say shell, since it is really the shell that one refers to in those cases.

[genlee]

Neat, I didn't know I had 300 posts until I looked at this thread

[Dolda2000]

Yeah, really genlee, you're working your way up fast! You probably have the highest posts per day rating on the entire forum.

[haryy]

it says that i dont have permissions to axs all of these. /mnt/cdrom, /mnt/cdrom2, /mnt/ disk, /mnt/floppy, /mnt/window (which is the windows partition)? How do i unlock them or how do i set my permissions differnet? thanks how do i do it so that i odnt have to be in a termonla emulator?


-haryyv