this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I F*cked up and I need help. (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by MJRul3s@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Hey guys. I'm new to Linux and I'm running Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon. Yesterday I have f*cked up. I was testing things in users and geve myself standart priveledges insted of Admin ones I had from beggining and then restarted PC. I then tried log back into users tab and change myself back to Admin but even tho the password is correct It says that it is not. /So at this point there is only one user in PC who has standart privliedges and no Admin./ I then tried to access root via terminal and this time It said that I don't have permision to do that. And this is where I'm at right now. Please help get back my admin privliedges.

Edit: Issue is fixed. I started GRUB and changed my password which fixed the whole issue. Once again big Thank you to everyone who gave me tips and also big thank you to the guy who started posting about rowing machines. You all wonderful.

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[–] Ghoelian@feddit.nl 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Huh, I always thought su stands for super user, but apparently it actually stands for substitute user (according to the manpage)

[–] SpaceCadet@sopuli.xyz 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think "substitute user" is the original meaning, and it's more like a retroactively applied acronym.

Looking at various old Unix manpages, it said various things in the past. In the HP-UX documentation it even lists three different variants in the same man page: "switch user", "set user" and "superuser".

"superuser" is probably the original meaning, because that's what it says in the Unix Manual 1st edition (1971): http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/su

NAME	su -- become privileged user
SYNOPSIS	su password
DESCRIPTION	su allows one to become the super--user, who has all sortsof marvelous powers. In order for su to do its magic, the user must pass as an argument a password. If the passwordis correct, su will execute the shell with the UID set to that of the super--user. To restore normal UID privileges,type an end--of--file to the super--user shell

I love Unix archeology :)

[–] Ultra980@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wouldn't the password remain in the shell history? Or didn't that exist back then?

[–] SpaceCadet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It probably wasn't such a concern back in 1971. I mean, even nowadays you still find programs where you can just add a login password to the command line.

[–] Ultra980@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Wow, that's terrible for security.

[–] ardorhb@kbin.cafe 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can do su to change the user in the current shell. Afaik it just defaults to root if no user ist specified. Everytime you run su you actually do su root

That said I always thought that it stands for switch user so intereresting to know that it‘s substitute.

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 4 points 1 year ago

I've heard people call it superuser since before Linux (AIX Unix a long time ago for example).

But substitute user makes sense since you can su to any user (just root is the default).