Mike,
SVGALib needs root permission to initialize the display to graphic mode,
and is more or less intended for use by suid root programs. In fact, at
the end of vga_init, it attempts to drop the suid privilege, but this
can be defeated by clever unscrupulous coding in the calling program.
If you trust the emulator or game you can give it suid root privilege
like so:
chown 0 <game>
chmod u+s <game>
Suid just gives the privilege of the owner of the file to the command,
that's the reason for the chown.
You can still use the other permissions to control which users can run
it, but for whomever can run it, it will run as if it had been run by
root.
You might want to look at the source code for the game/emulator. If it
messes about with set[r][e]uid and/or provides a way to get a shell you
might not want to trust it. If not, it is probably harmless.
Lawson
On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Michael Trausch wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> I am trying to use SVGALib applications such as Nintendo emulators and
> so
> on on Linux, however, I'm having a problem... I cannot do it unless I
am
> the root user.
>
> I cannot find a way to allow it to work as a user... is there something
> that I can change to allow this, or is it an impossible thing?
>
> I'm just wondering, because I would like to be able to run these things
> without running su to become root... and that way, I can allow my
> brother
> and sister to play it on my computer if they want.
>
> - Mike
>
> =====================================================================
> Michael B. Trausch [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> V: (419) 838-8104 F: (815) 846-9374
> http://www.wcnet.org/~mtrausch ICQ UIN: 32369835
>
> "Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that
> curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly."
> - Arnold Edinborough
>
> PGP Key available at my web site
> =====================================================================
>
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