How do I change my permissions?

[yellowdog-newbie@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com]

>>> This differs from, say, Mac OS X, where an administrative user can do
>>> almost anything that "root" can do (which is a better system, IMHO).

>> Yeah, because in OSX you're Lucifer (the 2nd most powerful being in
>> the universe) not God.

> Linux (and, by extension, Yellow Dog Linux) has many good features and
> practices. However, the paranoia-by-design approach can get a little
> tedious after awhile.

All very true, but kind of amusing since Mac OS X is just as much
unix as YDL. In fact, in Mac OS X I also use sudo and su from time
to time e.g. when some files can't be trashed because the OS has
got confused about who owns them, and for administrative tasks
involving fink and X11.

I suppose that in time kde might evolve to the kind of
sophistication which is already in mac osx. In redhat 8
on my pc it was possible (as ordinary user) to double
click on an rpm, a window pops up asking for root's password, and
the stuff gets installed. This seems to have gone from redhat 9
again, presumably too insecure...