Confused...sudo and running programs as root

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Ok, both my laptop and desktop have 9.2. On my desktop, if I su to root in a console and run, say, mozilla, it runs as root with my root profile. On my laptop, it runs as my regular user. Conversely, on my laptop, running 'sudo mozilla' runs it as root, but on my desktop, it runs it as regular user. What's up with this?

[Cannonfodder]

Try some tests such as deleting your user mozilla folder and see if it recreates the user folder. The goal is to confirm it is really going there and not to a copy somewhere else?

[Steve Scrimpshire]

I will try that, but maybe I should clarify that I know it is not running as root because it was when I tried to install optimoz and got the error 'Error: Cannot copy to /usr/lib/mozilla/chrome: permission denied" I also know because, if I have mozilla open as my user and attempt to run it as root, using whichever one fails to actual run it as root, it tells me 'Cannot use profile Default because it is already in use'. Anyway, I will try your suggestion, too.

[Cannonfodder]

I really dont have an answer, just suggesting investigative work... let us know how you made out..

[mandrake_alf]

Try this..

 

When you use 'su' add a '-' (ie: su -)

The difference is

su: changes uid:gid only

su - : changes uid:gid to 0, reads your bashrc, and moves you to /root directory.

(much more like actually loggin in as root as opposed to just changing uig:gid)