Re: Root logins versus sudo (was: Re: [tlug] Replacing the WM in Gnome 2.24)

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 01:29:12AM -0500, jep200404 wrote:
> Scott Robbins wrote:
> 
> > Fedora still uses root rather than sudo by default.  They have disabled,
> > (by default) root login in gdm.  It's simply a matter of ading yourself
> > to /etc/sudoers.   (That is, assuming you want what has become more or
> > less common practice these days.)
> 
> How widespread has the practice of disabling root logins 
> (neverminding gdm) become? 

To briefly digress, in Fedora, it's ONLY disabled in gdm.  That is, if
you use kdm, or boot into level 3 and type start X, it works.  My guess
is that their aim is training wheels for the newer user who accepts all
defaults.  

I'm too busy in my old age to be much of a distro hopper, but the Ubuntu
based distros (which are probably the majority, these days), Mac OS X of
course--I can't remember, off the top of my head if some of the other
newcomer oriented ones, (Mepis, PCLinuxOS, etc.,) do it or not.  

It just struck me, when I saw that Fedora had now made it the default
behavior (though in their case, easy to circumvent with even a little
knowledge), that it is becoming more the trend.  Also, Fedora struck me
as going more in the Ubuntu direction because, as of F10, they now give
the complete path to users, whereas prior to F10, all the /sbin
directories were only in root's default path. 

So, it's really more of an impression than informed opinion on my part. 

-- 
Scott Robbins
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