Site News :: DSL v3.4
As far as I have understood, there are two users implemented. One called dsl, and one called root (a superuser I presumed). The user dsl has restricted privileges (standard user).
I presumed that the command sudo would invoke root privileges... which I thought should be password protected (what's the security if anyone can do this on my system).
If this is not the case, then what is sudo for?
And more important: If it says "do ... as root" what am I to do then (or how)?
Looks as I have still a lot of basic stuff to learn (I was studying the DSL wiki before writing this. Well, life is what happens when you have other plans - I am now considering whether to make a more compehensive wiki for non-linux users 
)
Alrasch,
You presumed *somewhat* correctly as long as you are not talking about an install of DSL where one has added other users. In that case those other users would be restricted users, unless and until, one gave them more permissions. Otherwise, yes, just root and dsl but dsl is in the sudoers list with permission for all with no password necessary and root has no password so you can't log on as root, unless one has changed it to act differently DSL automatically logs you on as user dsl.
Sudo works on DSL just like it works on other GNU/Linuxes, gives root privileges for the session invoked by the command it is used with.
And, yes, there is some security risk with this, as there always is with the choice between "security" and "ease of use". However, when one boots a live CD that disappears from the system when one shuts down, a large part of the pertinent "security" comes from the person at the keyboard and who they let touch the system. Unless one has a persistent filesystem, even any successful attack would be gone at the next boot. Ports aren't open by default. Some of the current popular GNU/Linux distros always put the regular user in sudoers by default, while, for example, the Debian distro does not. There is considerable debate around the sudo command and security in the open source community, sometimes that debate becomes heated and we don't need to reproduce that here.
How to use it? As you appear to understand, sudo (do as root) foo (substitute whatever command you want to do as superuser). For example: if you entered in a terminal, sudo beaver, it would open beaver (notepad type application) as root, thus you could edit files that were owned by root.
It seems like you would be a good candidate for Robert's new book, where I imagine all the aspects of his choices for DSL are discussed. On the other hand, you're a coder, so you could probably discover all this on your own as I did.
original here.