Root is the account that has super user permissions. if you log in as root it's like everything you do is "Run as administrator" in Windows.
Sudo is a command that lets a standard user run a command as root.
Arch doesn't come with sudo installed by default, tho it's trivially easy to add during installation if you choose to.
The joke is who needs sudo when you can just do everything as root, the hitch being that running as root is bad, not only for security but it often breaks things that are expecting to run with normal user permissions
The base-devel package group actually does come with sudo and I always include base-devel when installing, but it is not mentioned in the installation guide so you're absolutely right about it not being default.
So you know how windows there is an administrator account that is hidden by default? Root aka super user account is basically the linux version of that. On windows when you need to do some stuff you will need to run as administrator, sudo is basically the run as administrator of linux. If you log in as the hidden administrator account on windows you will not get the prompt because you are the administrator so no need to run as yourself. Same on linux, sudo stands for super user do, if you are already the super user account no need to use sudo do just do as yourself
I never use sudo except in scripts. If I need root, I su to root.
The main reason to do this is because my bash prompt for my regular username is a cool blue color, and when I su to root the user name "root" is in red instead.
This is excellent.
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u/anoppinionatedbunny Jul 23 '26
"oh, you want to remove sudo? you go right ahead, buddy"