From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Q8ufi-0007m5-0h for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:27:22 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 0F7AC1C016; Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:26:00 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ww0-f53.google.com (mail-ww0-f53.google.com [74.125.82.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B746E1C016 for ; Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:26:00 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wwj40 with SMTP id 40so5353529wwj.10 for ; Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:25:59 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references :in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding :message-id; bh=tnhSY794YtlMCxAcQHbQAtp8ovYOqfmwQGTrKeMbPZc=; b=DreqOXqr4H9Gd9+d+BTIw6FxpGxDeV4l7HApuQxk9HrIh0V3ANgcDa60/Lxi9V6FIj w9DggmXzGPJSOOH3cPSBUOM6hxq6ow4zJrzWjQG6EQKgdVHUXRNHLHHJ9k48+sO4VZtD A3rFAkxN9XO1S/MnCF52JBG8QOunxnAfahxos= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=F+YOAaYTTuuVS7gxHPa3RKhB6ZMNpCWRPwmZtt2GFSwIZPMJyL80VD0a1STMVH8ryW LThercNCOYXcqW+O60xmXh+TXxPWUdZYx06Hymq49uybdEMYTlHPJr0BLJYeqKwwZ2Qc DSD9qPv9ApqLg5jwDxHtFZqTc/Nj23AWiqSAI= Received: by 10.216.67.17 with SMTP id i17mr3711929wed.101.1302441959788; Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:25:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nazgul.localnet (196-215-19-231.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.215.19.231]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id f52sm2183785wes.35.2011.04.10.06.25.57 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:25:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] su doesn't work for me. Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:25:37 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.6 (Linux/2.6.38-ck; KDE/4.6.2; x86_64; ; ) References: <20110410132146.GA936@muc.de> <4DA1AE53.3010804@web.de> In-Reply-To: <4DA1AE53.3010804@web.de> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201104101525.37308.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: 7f85be45c73e219273e62104f7c994b6 Apparently, though unproven, at 15:19 on Sunday 10 April 2011, Yann Ormanns did opine thusly: > Subject: [gentoo-user] su doesn't work for me. > From: Alan Mackenzie > To: Yann Ormanns > Date: 2011-04-10 15:17 (+0000) > > > Hi, Gentoo. > > > > When, as a normal user, I type "su", followed, when prompted, by the > > > > root password, I get the following error message: > > su: Permission denied > > > > . The return code is 1. I can't glean anything useful from the man > > page. > > > > Would somebody please tell me what I'm missing. > > > > Many thanks! > > Are you a member of the "wheel"-group? You can check that by executing > "id yourname". If not, execute "usermod -aG wheel yourname". Only root can run that and he can't su to root :-) Log in directly as root on a text console and run it there. If you can't log in as root, try su to root from any user in the wheel group. If that still doesn't work, get out the LiveCD -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com