Sudo Failed

[Will H. Backman]

Old Rocker wrote:
> When I try to do an update on my apt-get repositories, this is what I 
> get:
> 
> $ sudo apt-get update
> sudo: unable to lookup ubuntu via gethostbyname()
> 
> and when I click on Synaptic this is the error message that pops up:
> 
> Su returned with an error
> 
> Rebooting doesn't fix it, nor using other applications and seeing if its 
> fixed, for instance the same message pops up when I use aptitude and 
> not apt-get.
> 
> Something's happened along the way to change things (permissions or 
> corruption) but I don't know exactly what.
> 
> Anyone know how to deal with this, and is reinstallation the only way?
> 

Sudo's config file is in etc.
Sudo config files can be centralized and distributed to a bunch of 
computers because you can include specific machine names in the config 
file to have machine specific settings.
Looks like you have a machine name (ubuntu) in your config file.
Use visudo to edit it.  You'll have to boot into single user mode first.