If a user needs special privileges to do something, then only grant the user the required privileges, no need to give admin privileges.
If root does something, root can remount read only, set the immutable bit temporarily, but most important, even the admin should only become root, if required and then be very careful rmdir does only delete empty directories unlink is as risky as rm, but it's good practise to be aware what you want to delete, so at least the awareness adds security, even while it could delete files, too mv -i and cp -i don't overwrite by accident, e.g. related to a typo Regarding typos an advice does follow btw. within a FS mv is an atomic operation, knowing this could be useful to make work more safe, too [root@moonstudio tmp]# ls -l very_important/ total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important2 [root@moonstudio tmp]# ls -l very_important/very_important{1,2} -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important/very_important1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important/very_important2 before you rm, make a dry-run with ls. Oops, I don't want to delete the above, this is what I want to delete: [root@moonstudio tmp]# ls -l very_important/very_important{,2} -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important/very_important -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important/very_important2 Now replace ls -l by rm [root@moonstudio tmp]# ^ls -l^rm rm very_important/very_important{,2} [root@moonstudio tmp]# ls -l very_important/ total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 12 19:18 very_important1 Use the tab key, don't type, to avoid that rm very_important/very_important1 by accident does read rm very_important/ very_important1 FWIW if a developer has got a user question or does notice a bug, even a developer is well-advised to use the appropriate forum. How do you expect the bugs and missing features to be fixed, resp. added, if you don't report it? If you notice it, it's up to you, to report it. To some extend Ubuntu maintainers could patch provided software, but at some point it's up to upstream to do the work. You should become aware that you only waste your own time. Most subscribers do not read, at least not reply to this thread, those who do reply and try to explain you your mistakes only do it, when they have the time to do so and we don't do it to argue. We are not emotional involved, we only try to make clear, that you are on the wrong track. Hth, Ralf -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss