Graphical root login-- be fore warned im a total noob --

**LT72884** · 11-02-2006, 06:54 PM

hello all. im brand new at this whole linux thing. im barely 22 years old and i am gettin ready for school. i am goin to be taking linux fundimentals and cyber security. my question is i installed knoppix 5.0.1 onto my box and i want to log into the graphical mode using root. for some reason i get an error message saying knoppix wont allow this action. why and how do i fix that. the reason i want to log in graphicaly is becasue i want to learn hwo to do administration and root actions graphicaly and in the text consoule. im wierd that way. i prefere gui's over text modes. i use windows alot and love the way its set up with the admin. i am having a hard time understanding why most peopl do root or admin actions in text mode. alsoi where can i larn basic stuff for linux. i am currently trying to build a LFS system but half the commands in there i dont understand and the whole mount thing,WTF is that about. I have downloaded a book form the TLDP site and even though the book is labled linux for beginers, it clearly is not becasue i have no clue what he is talking about in there. lol. I DO NOT understand how networking worx with this OS at ALL. where is my network nieboorhood icon so i can see who is on the network.

PLZZZZZ HELP ME. I feel like im in a oblivian of confusion.

thanx sooo much for lettin me speak my mind. but i realy want to learn this stuff and learn it well.

**OErjan** · 11-02-2006, 10:07 PM

the fact is that most configurations is just textfiles, that you can do in any way you like, they are usualy fairly informative.
below i have posted a piece from xorg.conf (the windowslike environment in many distributions), the parts with a # infront are notthing more than information for the user the lines without are the different setings.

# ************************************************** ********************
# ServerLayout sections.
# ************************************************** ********************

# Any number of ServerLayout sections may be present. Each describes
# the way multiple screens are organised. A specific ServerLayout
# section may be specified from the X server command line with the
# "-layout" option. In the absence of this, the first section is used.
# When now ServerLayout section is present, the first Screen section
# is used alone.

Section "ServerLayout"

# The Identifier line must be present
Identifier "Simple Layout"

# Each Screen line specifies a Screen section name, and optionally
# the relative position of other screens. The four names after
# primary screen name are the screens to the top, bottom, left and right
# of the primary screen. In this example, screen 2 is located to the
# right of screen 1.

Screen "Screen 1"

# Each InputDevice line specifies an InputDevice section name and
# optionally some options to specify the way the device is to be
# used. Those options include "CorePointer", "CoreKeyboard" and
# "SendCoreEvents".

InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

you can do any root task in knoppix by typing

Code:

sudo

infront of the command in a console or "run command" under the "k" menu (START menu in win), say sudo konqueror, that will open konqueror, more or less same thing as explorer combined with "this computer", in administrator mode.
"sudo kedit", will open something very like notepad where you can open text files and edit them.
or you can click the icon kontrol center in the "k" menu and get most things graphically.
or type sudo kcontrol in a terminal (console, xterm or whatever you want to call it) or run program in the run command on the K menu...

as for the mounting, this is more or less necesary in linux, for a desktop or laptop it may be overkill but in a server or multiuser system this allows the admin to hotswap disks or change the path to partitions/disks as he/she wishes, and as linux and unix was made for that to begin with...it is one of many things that will get clear after a while.
you can use mount to create virual drives (just a file given a filesystem and mounted) or mount ISO's of cd and DVD's, or mount harddrives over a network...

if you want to get a "crashcource" in textmode linux i can recommend
http://floppix.com/labs.html
there you get a consise description on many common processes, usually enough to stumble trough most tasks in textmode linux.

as for network neighbourhood, try the penguin icon then utilities then samba network neighbourhood, that should help you get that sorted, if not keep asking.

to get faster/better help, you put your specific problem in the subject, same thing if you try posting in correct part of forum, most will try to help you, peraps some harsh language sometimes but try to be patient with us all, many may find things hard to explain as they are so "simple" for the one explaining...
in other words, if explanation is not good enough, ask again specifying parts you have trouble with.
keep asking we will try to help.

**LT72884** · 11-03-2006, 02:11 AM

hmm, ok i will try not to use harsh language. lol..

ok. i have tryed su and what not,but what is sudo..anyway what im tryin to do is log in as root graphically. for example. when i boot up my pc, it takes me to the GUI log in screen where it says user name. i put in root and then my password for root. well when i hit enter it says root logins not accepted. is there a way that i can log in as root and be able to preform root actions in graphical mode. i realy do not like using the consule because im still used to windows where i can do all admin actions from the GUI. Im trying to edit the fstab file using kedit but it says i dotn have permissions for that. last time i gave the user all permisions it screwed up the whole system and i lost everything becasue it was trying to read and write certain actions to the filesytem but it couldnt find it cuz i muffed it up. so how do i log in as root in the GUI not the consule. i know about sudo and su commands. also im sorry for all this because i realy dont know how to explain it correctly. this is my first time using a linux distro. i prefer to be admin and have all the permissions so i can learn the system inside and out. thanx sooooooooo much for your help. i look forward to hear your responses.

**OErjan** · 11-03-2006, 08:49 AM

running linux loged in as root is BAAAD, it is about only way to get viruses/trojans/malware in Linux, and too big risk to trash system if you do anything wrong, using "sudo" or even better "su -c" is MUCH safer, you can still crash things but you have one extra level of safety.

sudo is a way to do one single task as root, say open kedit to edit fstab, if you type comand below in konsole (in GUI) that will open kedit as root with fstab already opened.

Code:

sudo kedit /etc/fstab

or you could type

Code:

su -c "kedit /etc/fstab"

that will do same thing, su -c "command" is basically ask for root password, if correctly entered give me rootprivileges for comand between " " .

**OErjan** · 11-03-2006, 09:16 AM

ofcource if you really want to be root i guess you could always start a second Xsesion as root, hit ctrl+alt+F2 then type

Code:

startx -- :1 -nolisten tcp

you now will have two sessions,
switch between that session and your regular user with ctrl+alt+F5 and ctrl+alt+F6 (could be F4, F5... up to F9 but you will see)
just so you know $ in a bash prompt menas regular user and # that the user is root (bash-3.3$ = regular usr and bash-3.3# = root)
there can be 4 users loged into Knoppix on tty1-4 tty1 is knoppix and 2-4 are root as default iirc. so you will start X as root on second prompt.
if you then kill the pid that has knoppix bash prompt, you kill every process that knoppix has running, the line below (you get that line, and a few more, by typing ps aux|grep tty1 in a konsole)

Code:

   
 USER        PID    %CPU      %MEM    VSZ     RSS      TTY      STAT  START   TIME COMMAND
root        9996   0.0       0.0     1624      432     ?        Ss     Nov02   0:00 /usr/sbin/gpm -m /dev/mouse -t ps2
knoppix     9999   0.0       0.0     3416      1948     tty1    Ss     Nov02   0:00 -bash

h
the PID is the number you see as second entry, type sudo kill 9999 in this case.

**OErjan** · 11-03-2006, 09:22 AM

oh, one reason to learn linux in console is that you then can switch distribution and even manage unix systems without much effort, they are quite alike under the hood...
this means if you grasp basics that are taught in the floppix labs you can get by in most of them, just check manuals for the mst comon things like; vi, emacs, ls, rm, ln, ps, mv, chown, chmod, chgrp, kill...

to name one killall in some unixflavours does just that, kills whole system
another quirk was that rm alone in a old version of another OS deleted everything in the system in a blink (was RAPIDLY changed) , there are a few other such things.

**LT72884** · 11-03-2006, 03:46 PM

ok. i try the sudo code but it says im not in the sudoers file and so i ant use it. I try the other but it says kedit is not a command and i cant find kedit. so can i do the sam ecode but with kwrite. I tryed the ctrl+alt+f2 and now im in bash screen and i try ctrl+alt+f1-f12 and i cant get back to my other sessions. so what is this sudoers file all about and why does knoppix hate me so much man. lol just jokin. any way thanx soo much for the help so far and i hope to hear more back from you guys.

here is what my bash says

LT72884@box:~$ su -c "kwrite /etc/fstab"
Password:
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

kwrite: cannot connect to X server :0.0
LT72884@box:~$

i dont know if i did the code right or not. do i need to su to root b4 i do the code?

**OErjan** · 11-03-2006, 05:33 PM

ok, you might have to be knoppix to be in sudoers file, try the full searchpath (i am on a Slackware system now but it may/should be same)
su -c "/opt/kde/bin/kedit /etc/fstab"

**LT72884** · 11-03-2006, 06:43 PM

hmm. this is odd, all i have in the /opt folder is open office. i did a search for kedit and it says kedit does not excist on this machine, but kwrite does, but it still says the same message with sudo and su -c. im soo lost. lol.

**LT72884** · 11-03-2006, 06:55 PM

also how do i become knoppix. i thought i was in knoppix. i loged on with my user name and what not, so shouldnt i be a knoppix user. also how do i add my user to the sudoers file. no one else uses this box. its just my test box. thats why im trying to make my user have alll the same permissions as root so i can learn this system inwards and out threw the GUI and aslo with the konsole