My main account has sudo rights and I type the password in whenever making root changes. I far prefer this to the windows model of admin changes only requiring a yes click.
Most stuff I install doesnt require admin anyway. Its only system updates.
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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Use an underprivileged account, create a separate account, then you'll be prompted for user name and password when escalation is attempted. Same thing.
I just have admin rights on my account and don't give anything I don't trust UAC permission. No installer/platform like Steam or EGS or GOG requires UAC permission if they install to a different drive, and I have Windows on its own M.2 drive, while my games go to 1 of two 2TB nvmes.
On my server I do most things under a non-root account.
On my Windows machines I really don't want it to tell me what I can and cannot do. If I break it I'll fix it.
I like to actually log in as root on a terminal to do admin stuff, never got into sudo really. Old habits, you know.
I'll do that on my Linux machine if I have to do a lot of admin stuff. Otherwise I just stick to sudo.
The only reason to actually sudo su is when you have to redirect to a file, as root, and tee is not an option for some reason.
Why not sudo -s?
No particular reason but for that sort of thing I just do su -
What
On the windows gaming machine, I let it do its own thing with UAC clickthroughs basically just notifying me when something is making system changes.
On Linux, I have a separate root password and use some combination of su, kdesu, yast, or whatever, but I never log in as root directly. I don't game that much on Linux (that machine is lacking in graphics horsepower), but things like EU4 work well enough.
When I had a windows computer I would crank the setting that requires administrator privileges way up. But the only time I actually logged into admin was to install drivers.
I just left all the stuff as it was :p.. I have 1 account I use for everything. In terms of needing a password to install software, I suppose it depends on what im installing