What is root?

Root is the name of the most powerful account on a Debian installation. This user account can do everything on the machine. It's also known as supervisor, administrator.

It has uid?FootNote(uid is user identifier, a number which identifies all user accounts) 0 and gid?FootNote(gid is group identifier) 0.

Password

At installation time, you have been asked for creation or not of the root account.

if you want so (the default), you'll be asked to provide a password for root. Use a strong one!
if not, no root account is enabled and the password of the first user created will be used for administration tasks.
If you forgot your password, read [http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-tips.en.html#s-crackroot "I forgot the root password!"]

How to use root account

Under Gnome : in Gnome Application Menu/Accessories/Root Terminal
From console : read Debian Reference's [http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-tutorial.en.html#s-login-root Login to a shell prompt as root]
In a terminal, you can use ["su"] (or ["gksu"]) to change your identity to root, However, it's recommended to configure and use ["sudo"] (or gksudo) to run a given command. (read the manpages for more help.)

CategorySystemSecurity