On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Kent West wrote:
>This will probably be one of those questions that EVERYBODY knows the
>answer to, so "why are you asking such dumb questions, Kent?" However,
>being entrenched in the Windows world where you didn't do such things, I
>wanted to ask before I hosed something.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
One of the magically cool things about linux is that AS A NORMAL USER
there is a very limited amount of damage you can do. In this case, you
did, in fact, know most of the things you needed to do - you were just
hesitant to do them. Worst case scenario: you can fry your own account.
On my machine, I keep a dummy account for just such a purpose;
if I want to try some new thing and want to be sure not to fry any of my
stuff, I try it with that account. This is also good for general
experimentation - screw around all you want in a dummy account, you
really can't hurt anything.
Note: all of this assumes you have your machine set up in a
reasonably secure (normal) way. That is, don't give any write
permissions to anyone else, beware of setuid things, etc..
-Michael
Michael Stenner Office Phone: 919-660-2513
Duke University, Dept. of Physics [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305
