Documentation< Previous | Contents | Next >
The system will ask you whether you wish to create an ordinary user account at this point. This account should be your main personal log-in.
The account you create at this point will be given root privileges by means of the sudo command, and the root account itself will have login disabled. If you wish, you can enable the root account later by setting a password for it with the command sudo passwd root.
You should not use the root account for daily use or as your personal login, nor should you use sudo
except when root privileges are really required.
Why not? Well, one reason to avoid using root’s privileges is that it is very easy to do irreparable damage as root. Another reason is that you might be tricked into running a Trojan-horse program — that is a program that takes advantage of your super-user powers to compromise the security of your system behind your back. Any good book on Unix system administration will cover this topic in more detail — consider reading one if it is new to you.
You will first be prompted for the user’s full name. Then you’ll be asked for a name for the user account; generally your first name or something similar will suffice and indeed will be the default. Finally, you will be prompted for a password for this account.
If at any point after installation you would like to create another account, use the adduser command.