[X Newbies] Assorted questions

[Gretchen Hayman]

On Thursday, Apr 10, 2003, at 13:11 US/Central, Raoul Armfield wrote:
> As I am sure you are aware I did not hold this out as the simplest way
> to do this.  In fact the 40 steps outlined in the KB are essentially
> the same as the few steps you outlined.

All of one's "stuff" is associated with one's short name.  You can 
change your short name quite simply with NetInfo, but then _everything_ 
breaks and you have no home directory and no access to your "stuff".  
The kbase article outlines a proper way to make the change to insure 
that all of your data, preferences, etc. are moved.   It's not the only 
way, but it is a proper way to totally move one's stuff to another 
account.

> however, IIRC for you to
> change ownership of the files you need to log in as root any way.

Not true, you only need to have sudo privileges.  While sudo 
essentially lets you do the same things as root, it makes it a bit 
harder to screw things up as you have to enter a password from time to 
time.  Logging in as root is generally accepted to be a very bad idea.

>  On a side note.  I know in solaris and linux there is a usermod
> command that will change your username, which is equivalent to the

Just wanted to point out that with linux, you can use usermod to change 
the "short name" (login), BUT you still would have additional changes 
to make if you want to access any of your files.  However, it is still 
a bit easier under linux, as there is no NetInfo getting in the way.  I 
think you could make the changes in OS X using the nicl or niload 
tools.  But as you noted, such a discussion is best carried out on the 
XUnix list.

Gretchen