With Mac OS X is you are probably going to have to login. Apple has been preparing Mac users with Multiple Users for awhile now. When you login, you enter a login name and a password which tells the computer who it is that is using the computer and how much control over the computer they get. You entered a login and password when setting Mac OS X up. Root, besides being the topmost level of the directory structure, is the computer's superuser.
Root can do anything and see anything.
When you set up your computer, the root account was given the same password as your administrator account. These are all the secret hidden files that the Mac has always hidden and PC users have bitched about not being able to see. As root, you can seriously mess up your computer and should as a rule of thumb never login as root unless you have a good reason to. Any warning you ever heard about working in ResEdit on a Mac, you may now bring over and apply to working as root. Mac OS X Terminal - tcsh shell Open the Desktop, go into Applications, and go into Utilities.