To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
X-Original-Article-From: "da Silva, Joe" <Joe DOT daSilva AT emailmetering DOT com>
Subject: Re: DOS/Linux coexistence (was: [Club Dr-DOS]) #2b
From: shadow AT krypton DOT rain DOT com (Leonard Erickson)
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Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 13:34:15 PST
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In mail you write:

>> (Everything on DOS is "run as root" because there are no user accounts
>> nor varied permission levels.)


Depends. If you are running stuff on a Netware file server, even from a
DOS machine, there *are* file and user permissions for a lot of stuff. 
 
>         [Joe da Silva]  
>
>         Yeah, I know, the *nix world is very protective of root
>         privileges, whereas DOS users take such privileges
>         as their natural right. I'm sure I'm not the only user
>         from the DOS world that invariably runs as "root".
>
>         One of the first things I did, after spending two days
>         trying to figure out how, was to "SUID" (I think that's
>         what it's called) the "shutdown" command. I think
>         it's absurd that a "pleb" user can easily hit the reset
>         or power switch, yet is by default not allowed to
>         shut down the system properly! Strange priorities
>         these *nix folks have!

You have to remember that Unix was being run on multi-user systems
where the omputer was (usually) somewhere safe and the users where
accessing it via terminals. They could shut off their terminal, but not
the system.

Heck, when I get around to setting up a Linux box, I actually have some
terminals to connect to it! Including a few 8-bit systems. <g>

-- 
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow{G})
 shadow AT krypton DOT rain DOT com        <--preferred
leonard AT qiclab DOT scn DOT rain DOT com     <--last resort