[NCLUG] Why not Root?

[David Braley]

I am a happy Linux user by choice. I do not have a Unix or Linux
background as a system administrator or developer. In many ways I am
still a newbie, but I can also take care of a lot of problems on my own
(thank the stars for google!).

I started using Linux some ten or so years ago (slackware 3.x?). I
choose to use it as my primary desktop about seven years ago because I
was impacted by the stories I was reading at the time about the ideas
behind the open source movement. The stories were compelling and quite
frankly, I was sick and tired of the blue screen of Death. I felt I
could make a difference by making the switch. Even though I have had my
share of problems with the mighty penguin, I am glad I joined the
community of the few, I mean crazy, brave, no wait, I mean Cool!

So with all of that crap out of the way I have a question for the Super
Cool Linux users on the list. (I brown nose so you'll be nice to me!)

If a Linux machine is built and used by a single person, why not always
log in as root?

Oh sure, I have heard a million times from others say things like,
"never log in as root because you could accidentally f**k up your
system." From my experiences, I have COMPLETELY hosed a system executing
a command as sudo.

Others will say, "you do not want other users messing up your system."
What if I am the only user?

Is there a security reason for not logging in as root? Is the machine
somehow less secure when someone is logged in as root?

If a mis-behaving program run by a user is crashing, is the rest of the
system somehow safe from the evil program?

As a personal policy I do not use a computer for anything important. I
do not store or create secrets on my computer. I am also quite
comfortable with file loss (even though I do backups, mostly for
convenience sake).

I bring this up because I am basically a lazy user. I was happy sudo'ing
into things for system administration before I moved over from
MicroNovelSoft to Fedora. That's when the whole annoying user path thing
started to get to me.

david at linux:~> sudo ifup wlan0
password: **********
bash: ifup: command not found

Oh ya, with Fedora I need to put the full path in.

david at linux:~> sudo /sbin/ifup wlan0

blah blah blah .......

So I can easily fix this up by setting my path so that user david can
have access to the other tools on my system using sudo (thanks Sean!).
But it got me thinking about the whole root thing and how it creates
another layer between me and the system, and the annoyance of getting
over the barrier.

So ... in my case, why not just log in as root?

Take care.

David