Re: [Sheflug] editing and saving system files

["Chris J" <cej [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

And Lo! The Great Prophet " Chris Johnson" uttered these words of wisdom:
> I'm editing some of the config files to set up my linux box as a
> samba/mail
> server for our windows network.
> I've got KDE as my UI and am using kate as my text editor.  What I want to
> know is how I can save the files (once edited) as I'm logged in as me not
> as
> root.  I can su in a command line to get root privileges but can I do the
> same in an xwindows session to enable me to save files.  I'm not too keen
> on
> using vi as I'm trying to learn the OS and don't have time to learn vi as
> well.
>

It's not an editor problem, so disregard whether vi's the solution or not,
it's a permissions problem caused by editting files that are read/write
only for root and not mere mortals. Thus you must either "su" or setup and
use "sudo". You can su from anywhere you can run commands, so there's no
problem with it in an xterm.

What you need to bear in mind is that su is a per-terminal command, so if
you "su" in an xterm, and you've four xterms open, you'll only have root
privs from the xterm you typed su in, it *won't* give you root access for
your whole xsession, therefore anything you want to do as root you /must/
start from that xterm.

Chris...

-- 
\ Chris Johnson                 \
 \ cej [at] nightwolf.org.uk          \
  \ http://cej.nightwolf.org.uk/  ~-----------------------------------+
   \ Redclaw chat - http://redclaw.org.uk - telnet redclaw.org.uk 2000 \____

___________________________________________________________________

Sheffield Linux User's Group -
http://www.sheflug.co.uk/mailfaq.html

  GNU the choice of a complete generation.