Getting Started Guide 151 ating system is still there, you simply must alter the configu- ration of your boot manager to launch that system. You need a boot floppy diskette to do this. Login Linux is a true multi-user system. Before you can do anything with your Linux system, you must log in using a valid username and password. The root user account is always part of Linux; you created at least one other regular user account during the installation of OpenLinux. When you log in, you have certain access rights to the system, based on the permissions granted to the user account that you use to log in. You can log in at either a character-mode login prompt, or using the graphical login window that OpenLinux 2.3 uses by default. On some operating systems such as Windows 98, logging in is optional. This is not true in Linux. You must log on before you can do anything else. See also access rights, users, groups. Logout When you have finished working with OpenLinux, it’s a good idea to log off of the system. When you log off, the Linux operating system is still running and can accept valid network requests, but no one can work from the user account that you were using unless they log in again using a valid username and password. Logging out at the end of your workday is a good security habit. You can log out by choosing the Logout item from the KDE main menu, or enter- ing the logout command if you are working in a character-mode console screen. When you have logged out, you return to the login prompt. The system continues to run. If you want to shut down the system, it’s a good idea to log out first to be certain that all of your programs have gracefully finished their tasks. See also login, shutdown.