I am new to Linux and am trying to wrap my head around the concept of super users in the context of the sudo command. If I am the superuser, and only user on my system, why do I not have all permissions to all files? Why must I use the sudo command and enter my password?
I'm trying to grasp conceptually how I can think of this.
you are not the superuser
root is the superuser
you have the ability to temporarily become root using sudo
By only elevating privileges explicitly and temporarily this way, you avoid accidents (such as deleting important system files) and make it harder for certain types of malware to take control of your system.
GNU/Linux has it's background in the multi-user computers, when there was one or a few machines in the uni/lab/office data centre with terminals located where they needed to be in the same or different buildings used by loads of people (time-share). It was unix back then (1970s to early 1980s).
GNU (meaning GNU's not Unix) with the Linux kernel (original kernel was intended to be Hurd, but Linus was quicker at creating the Linux kernel) is usually just called Linux (rather imprecisely in my opinion). GNU/Linux is a unix-like operating system.
The idea of personal computers (where everything was owned by the single owner of the machine, used only by that person) came later. The IBM PC didn't come out till 1981, well after the unix operating systems were established and mainstream (on larger multi-user systems).
Linux has it's background in the pre-PC era with multi-user computers. Being multi-user security was key so a single student/worker didn't destroy a whole lab, or universities datasets through mistakes.
Myself, I think as sudo as just elevating my privileges temporarily. super-user-do
