Quick basic question from Linux retard

I have a Virtual Server with the CentOS 5 Linux operating system with GoDaddy (Oi, no laughing at the back! )

The problem is, that phpmyadmin displays the error about mcrypt not being installed. Will this cause slowness or other problems?

Just in case, I want to install it anyway just in case it does cause slowness or problems (although I might be wrong about that?)

The good news is that i've found the instructions to do this:

My basic stupid question is to do with step 3. How do I "su to the root user"?

I'm asking here btw as this isn't just a server question, it also goes to my understanding of Linux overall, which will come in very useful when I install Ubuntu on my Notebook later on, and I will no doubt add to this thread later with more basic stupid questions

Any help appreciated, and "LOL FAIL" is also an acceptable response

 

su stands for "substitute user", and it's used to execute commands as if you were that user. It can also be used to take over root's shell ("su to the root user") with this:

Code:

$ su -

Note: The $ sign in prompts indicates a non- root shell. root shells are marked with a #.

As a side note, you can also use su as root to execute a command from your user account; i.e. the following command will run geany from a root shell as if Captain_Fail called it:

Code:

# su - Captain_Fail -c geany

 

For future reference.

Ubuntu uses sudo, sooo

Code:

$ sudo su

 

Cheers guys!

 

He's not using Ubuntu?