[PlanetCCRMA] On the Necessity of Being Root

[Jan Depner]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 13:19 -0800, Brian Good wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've been lurking for a year now, but I've been too busy to do more than 
> dabble.  I understand the
> argument for doing your audio work as root, but if the net is your textbook 
> the inhibition about net
> surfing as root impedes study and switching  back and forth between virtual 
> terminals is just too
> cumbersome so I wish this stuff could be made to run by mere mortal users.
> 

    You don't have to run as root anymore but don't ask me how to set it
up ;-)  I run my window manager as a normal user but I run
JACK/qjackctl, Ardour, and JAMin as root.  I just have icons on my KDE
desktop that run as root (it's easy to set up).  When I click one it
asks me for the root password.  I trust the people who are maintaining
JACK/qjackctl, Ardour, and JAMin (I would certainly hope so ;-) so I
don't worry about those applications causing problems on my system.
When I'm doing serious recording (8 channels for me) I'll log in using
fluxbox as root - my startup script for qjackctl shuts down ALL
extraneous processes, including the network so that my system is
isolated.


> Thank you, Fernando, for all your fine work.  And thanks to the other board 
> gurus for their generous advice, which has benefited me second hand many 
> times.


    Second that!


-- 
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
The Fuzzy Dice
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html


"As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be 
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and 
this we should do freely and generously."

Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of 
Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744