add a user

[Joe Hart]

Donn wrote:
> I know that becoming root is controlled by "sudo" on Ubuntu, so you should 
> start there to find out how to prevent other users from using sudo. I don't 
> know off-hand.
>   
The first user id (1000) is created when *buntu is installed.  That is 
the ONLY user that is given sudo privileges because they are 
automatically assigned to the admin group.   However, anyone who belongs 
to the admin group will be able to do use it as well, and using their 
OWN password.

The control of sudo is held in the /etc/sudoers file and must be edited 
with the command visudo (which actully runs nano to edit the file).  You 
have to be root to run it, which means either give root a password (via 
sudo passwd) or doing a sudo -i.  I recommend the latter.

For more information you can consult the man pages for sudo.  You can 
customize it so certain users can run certain commands, but only the 
ones you specify.

Another point of note is that if you happen to run more than one linux 
distribution on your computer, you will have access to the home 
directory of the user on the other system that shares your user id.