Re:Where did the wheel group get its name?
by dghughes on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:50PM
(#17207262)
People learning Linux find it confusing. They ask what root is and understand the concept of root of the file system. Then I say there is a user called root which confuses them. Then a group root only root is in it when the user root is created. But the two root words are not two groups one is the owner root (who is user root) it isn't the group.
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I've been doing linux for awhile and that explanation is confusing to me, so I see where they're coming from.
I usually oversimplify: "root" is a keyword typically used to be all incompacing. The system root contains all files in the system. The user root is a super-admin that has all user rights in the system. The group root is a super-admin group the root user is assigned to and has all group rights.
Re:Where did the wheel group get its name?
by ScottBurson on Friday June 01, 2018 @01:20PM
(#17207656)
"encompassing"
> The system root contains all files in the system.
Note that, strictly speaking, this is a misconception. The root file system is the one which is at the root of the hierarchy of mounted file systems.
Even the notion of something being (or not being) "in the system" can be misleading, because today's systems, including storage devices, can be distributed in various ways.
Or annoying, apparently. A good friend of mine’s father, having recently acquired a unix based POS system for his retail store, decided he’d prefer a nicer name than ‘root’. Apparently, ca. 1984 unix was rather particular about names (instead of uid) and didn’t take kindly to such. Much pain ensued.