"Sudo is a handy little tool that is of value to both system administrators and common folks like us. What does it do? It allows you to temporarily assume the permissions of another user, up to and including root. If you belong to the camp that says you should only have root privileges at the time they are needed, sudo makes your life a little easier by making it easier to shape-shift between the permissions for a mere mortal and those of the super user.
"We'll start with an easy--and not uncommon--example. You need to make a change to a configuration file in order to take advantage of your latest hardware acquisition. Gedit is your editor of choice, but you need root privileges in order to write a modified version of the config. What to do? Sudo, of course..."
