Become su in Terminal - HowTo

**caf4926** · 31-Oct-2009, 22:45

You may be asked to open a terminal and give the result of a command. Sometimes you will need to be su - This is just to show you how. Open a terminal, type su - (Notice the - ) and hit enter. It will request your root password, enter it (by default nothing displays as you type - but just type) hit enter and you should see the end of the prompt turn to # and probably the colour of the line will change.

Or in Dolphin you can have a Terminal Panel, it can be quicker than having to cd through directories.

No complaints please about this being too simple. It's for Noobs

[EDIT] I have changed previously quoted su to su -
which after consulting the members, is the more accurate way. The right/correct way. Thanks. This is the benefit of the forum friends. I stand corrected.

**techwiz03** · 31-Oct-2009, 23:05

not too simple for noob's, but may I add ...

When as a noob's you are asked to post the results of su <command> output to us here in a forum, it can be helpful to describe an easy way to copy/paste the output to the forums. I use an arkayic method cause for some reason my copy paste doesn't seem to work in a terminal.
# sudo <command> >>$HOME/cmd.txt
then open open cmd.txt in editor and copy paste from there.

**caf4926** · 31-Oct-2009, 23:10

Copy and paste with the mouse not keyboard shortcuts.

**conram** · 31-Oct-2009, 23:31

If you create a launcher in the panel with the command kdesu konsole, then every time you need it just click and type your password. Simple and faster.

**caf4926** · 31-Oct-2009, 23:36

Originally Posted by conram

If you create a launcher in the panel with the command kdesu konsole, then every time you need it just click and type your password. Simple and faster.

True.
Only thing is, you'll need to explain just how to do that first (not to me BTW).

**conram** · 31-Oct-2009, 23:39

Originally Posted by caf4926

True.
Only thing is, you'll need to explain just how to do that first (not to me BTW).

That will be a new howto

Or maybe add it in yast2

palladium · 01-Nov-2009, 02:08

caf4926 wrote:
> You may be asked to open a terminal

some n00bs need to be told what "open a terminal" means and/or how to
do that..

> type su and hit enter

i suggest it should read

type su - (don't forget the dash) and press enter
or
type "su -" (without the quotes) and hit enter

> No complaints please about this being too simple. It's for Noobs

you did good, except for misspelling color ;-)

--
palladium
Have a lot of fun..

**suse_tpx60s** · 01-Nov-2009, 03:45

Originally Posted by caf4926

Copy and paste with the mouse not keyboard shortcuts.

You can also copy / paste in Konsole (KDE's terminal) using shift ctrl c to copy and shift ctrl p to paste. It may work in other terminals too.

**hendersj** · 01-Nov-2009, 12:40

On Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:08:20 +0000, palladium wrote:

>> type su and hit enter
>
> i suggest it should read
>
> type su - (don't forget the dash) and press enter or type "su -"
> (without the quotes) and hit enter

Actually, either should work just fine. The difference between the two
is that adding "-" initiates a login shell, but I've never run into a
situation where the '-' was absolutely required. That might be because
my paths for root and non-root tend to be the same, and I don't care if
the system puts me in root's home directory or not.

Jim
--
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator

**techwiz03** · 01-Nov-2009, 20:44

Originally Posted by suse_tpx60s

You can also copy / paste in Konsole (KDE's terminal) using shift ctrl c to copy and shift ctrl p to paste. It may work in other terminals too.

Too funny! I've been copy pasting by piping to text file then copy pasting from there and now I see 'shift' + ctrl. Mouse method works with actual mouse but my touchpad won't do copy paste even in text editor.