[NTLUG:Discuss] Linux beginner list?

[Ron Hamilton]

At 12:26 PM 5/24/2002 -0500, Wayne Dahl wrote:
>Hi all.
>
>Ok, shortly after I sent that last email to the list, I stumbled across 
>the answer.  I was attempting to install packages with Glint and rpm from 
>my normal user account.  I suspected it probably had something to do with 
>that as I had read somewhere in the install documentation that you 
>couldn't do it that way.  What was confusing me was that, from a shell 
>command line, I would log in from my normal account to an su, which 
>requires the same password as root.


Read up on what "su" does.  su stands for "substitute user" some people say 
"super user" although that is not completely accurate.  su can substitute 
you for another user, if without additional arguments then indeed it is the 
"super user"  with a user name ie. "su wayne" you would be logging in as 
user "wayne".  su by itself logs in as root user.

>I was under the impression that logging in as su would be the same as a 
>root login.  Glint would not even start when I was logged in as su.  I 
>logged in as root to issue a shutdown command and thought I would give a 
>try to running an rpm that way and it went just fine.  So I started Glint 
>and tried using it that way, worked like a charm.


Logging in as "su" logs you in as a user named "su".  I assume you set up a 
user account named su and gave it the same password as the root..

>I have most of the machine working.  I have a DSL router with 2 Windoze 
>computers and the Linux box connected to it and the Linux machine can see 
>the outside world.  The two M$ machines are networked together on a 
>peer-to-peer network and I haven't gotten to the point yet where I can see 
>any of the files on that network from the Linux machine.  Will get there 
>sooner or later.


Samba will do this for you.

>Sooo...my next question is...can you recommend a good email list for 
>beginners?  Having read some of your posts, it's obvious to me that I'm in 
>way above my head here right now.  That doesn't mean I'll leave, it just 
>means I don't want to bother you folks with what you would probably 
>consider painfully elementary questions.
>

I don't think you'll get flamed for elementary questions.. this is a user 
group after all... if it's good for one member of the group, then it should 
be good for the group as a whole.  The group exists for the advocacy of the 
Linux (or Gnu/Linux if you're last name is Stallman) and that includes 
education of newbies.  That said, I'd get myself a good Linux 
administration book if I were you and read it thoroughly.  Also online help 
should be consulted.  Try http://groups.google.com for a good source of 
information.  If you still can't figure out your problem, then I'd go ahead 
and post to the group.

--
Ron Hamilton
ronhamilton at gmx.net