okay, new to maemo, coming from gentoo, i did this

installed "rootsh"

$ sudo gainroot

# passwd

created & confirmed password XXX

# useradd -g user -G video,audio,dialout -m userX

# passwd userX

so good so far, exited...

if i now do $ su

i get :

"su: applet requires root privileges!"

while when i just $ root

i'm root!!!!

not so save & hows that?

cheers

Type rootsh to get also environment set to root defaults. Use root if you do not want this.

This is equiv to:
is functionality-wise same as ..whereas..
is functionality-wise same as

I'm not sure what your plan is with the "userX", but Maemo is pretty much designed for single-user devices, and it's not straightforward to make any use of additional users.

As for root giving you a root shell, that's what rootsh does, in addition to permitting sudo gainroot. (su itself is not permitted at all, because all escalation to root is to go through sudo, and policy established that way.)

Taking "not so save" to be an inquiry about security, physical security is everything. Don't enable remote logins as user or root, or at least only with adequate password/crypto, and then the ability to escalate to root at will from the console is not much of an issue. (If they get hold of your device, they'll do what they like sooner or later, anyhow. Having root access available just saves them 2 minutes.)

/bin/su is a busybox applet, hence /bin/su linking to /bin/busybox.

Busybox does not run as the root user. Hence, resulting in the message "su: applet requires root privileges!". You could setuid it but seeing as busybox makes up a lot of the coreutils, it would probably result in a major ****up...

o.k - i see - sorry for my ignorance ;-)

btw - how do i get rid of the boring "nokia" & "hands" pics at boot -
i'd very much prefere a regular linux bootsplash!

cheers

search for 'remove bootsplash' onhis very forum.