That's the absolutely LAST thing you want Linux (or any unix for that matter) is to login root automatically. It's not JUST a security matter either. If you're a user, you can only harm soo much of the system ,usually that being /home/{USER}. If you sent an erronous rm -rf ./ but missed that period, it'd wipe out your home dir, but not touch anything else. If you're root.. better have backup ;-(
Secondly, if you're using KDE< it has a program "kdesu" that allows a program to run AS ROOT. Most programs that need it will pop up this request.
As a last note, if you want to stay safe from accidental harm, you can do the following:
1: rename /bin/rm to /bin/remove
2: create ~/trash directory with rwxrwxrwt (read/write/execute for everybody with sticky on everybody)
3: create script in /bin/rm that moves files to ~/trash
The idea is to recreate the recycle bin for Linux. Usually, it's a good idea, cause you have to actually call remove to erase files.
the ~ in my stuff, for the linux newbies is your home path. Do a cd ~ to see what I'm talking about. Please let Tek-Tips members know if their posts were helpful.