Hello any chance of a quick run down on the correct way to read error logs in order to fault find mandriva and what info i should be posting when asking questions about how to get certain apps to work.

how can i read files like?
file:///var/log/faillog
i try to open them as me with kwrite and not see anything. How can I open them as root I cant seam to open kwite as root i can but it wont open files as root like earlier mandrivas did.
would it be ok to chown them to me ? would i have to chown them back to root after veiwing

Either sudo or su to root before attempting to open/view the files.

Open a terminal window.

su to root, then enter the command If kwrite will not load the file when you use the su command, try using su -

HTH,

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su -
thanks for the dash ernie.
that made the difference
what excatly does it mean if you dont mind explaining (if your busy thanks for the tip and dont worry)

Open a teminal window and run the following command to see the output below:

man su

This command opens the manual for the su command which answers your question better than I ever couldPutting it in other terms, running the su command with no arguments (no user name), tells su to open a shell with the root user and group ID. Adding the dash (su -) tells su to run a log-in shell with the root user and group ID.

You can use the man command with most Linux commands to get a manual.

HTH,

su on its own uses the current user's environment eg. $PATH etc. You will notice that the current directory did not change when this command was actioned. If the current user does not have permission for some things then using su may not give the superuser root permission either because root specific login scripts would not have been run.

su - creates a new shell for the superuser root account and runs all root login scripts. The current directory changes to the home directory of root. If in doubt, use su - as this will always be the true root account.

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