Passwords, Administrative, usability Q's

[cfairchild]

Just a simple question about a single user account. Just beginning to learn about Linux and have FC6 set up as a single user account, but trying to access the administrative preferences, I have to enter the root password EVERY TIME. Is there a way to change this, change account tyoe ir is this a normal security thing? Thanx

[smolloy]

This is one of the major differences between windows and linux -- permissions. Windows always runs as an administrator, so you never have to type in a password to install anything. The problem is that viruses, spyware, etc. never has to give a password either!

Linux is set up so that you have to supply a password if you want to do certain things (such as installing programs), and you should think about this as a good thing. This ensures the safety of your system, since, if anyone breaks into your machine, they will only be able to do damage to your personal account, and won't be able to break anything major.

[cfairchild]

great point, liking Linux more and more since adding it to my pc. one other thing, does fedora come with ok security, what would be good to download on top of anthing that might have come with FC6?

[bigtomrodney]

Really you should just run a firewall. I think fedora uses IPTables but you can replace this with another if you wish. Beyond that it's just your own approach - don't log in as root unless you are doing maintenence work - and even then not graphically. If you run ssh, ftp or anything similar look into configuring the system to use ports other than the defaults. Though I suspect you won't be using anything like this quite yet.

Personally I wouldn't bother with antivirus. Linux is not really a target, there have only been a few proof of concept viruses for linux and none have spread far if at all.

[cfairchild]

great, thanks for the heads up. No i wont be getting into the server or FTP side of things. still learning how to jump around in Linux, love the forum tho always helpful

[Marsolin]

As some added information, most firewalls still use iptables, but provide a graphical interface to make managing it easier.