you want to use sudo. sudo prompts you for your own password, and logs your use for the sysadmin, which is the folks up at ubuntu. if you want to operate fully as root, use "sudo bash". <div class="gmail_quote"> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Tom Poe <<a href="mailto:tompoe@fngi.net">tompoe@fngi.net</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I want to run /usr/bin/updatedb on my newly installed Ubuntu 8.04. How do I do that? Tom tom@tom-desktop:~$ su Password: su: Authentication failure tom@tom-desktop:~$ cd /usr/bin tom@tom-desktop:/usr/bin$ updatedb updatedb: can not open a temporary file for `/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db' tom@tom-desktop:/usr/bin$ -- Ubuntu-Studio-users mailing list <a href="mailto:Ubuntu-Studio-users@lists.ubuntu.com">Ubuntu-Studio-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-users" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-users</a> </blockquote></div>