On Being root....

[Larry Grover]

Rob Blomquist wrote:
> I am trying to get around having to play with Ubuntu's interest in keeping me 
> from becoming root in console and so on. I have no idea why, but maybe it is 
> to block people from running all the time as root, which I know is a pretty 
> stupid thing. I have not been at a root graphical desktop in years.
> 
> But right now I am in something of a pickle, as while I can su into root, and 
> open KDE's Root Console, I now cannot run Adept, Kuser, kdesu, or anything 
> graphical as root. Its really starting to bug me, as I am not a real pro at 
> apt-get, dpkg or any of that, and its a real pain right now to configure my 
> machine the way I want without the graphical side. Mostly, as between rpms 
> and deb based installers, all the packages seem to be named differently, and 
> I don't know what to ask for.
> 
> I am wondering if anyone has spent enough time, or has found a website that 
> lets us in on unblocking the root console, and all the GUI utilities that we 
> would like to use.
> 
> Rob
> 


Ubuntu uses sudo by default.  Sudo is more flexible -- for example, if 
you want to delegate different levels of authority in a multi-user 
environment sudo is a good option -- but it probably isn't for everyone. 
  You can enable root in Ubunut, if you decide you want to, but you 
might want to give sudo a try first.

Most of your questions about root/sudo in Ubuntu will probably be 
answered here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RootSudo

Regards,
Larry