very basic about initial install

[David Curtis]

reader at newsguy.com wrote:
> Tony Arnold <tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk> writes:
> 
>> Not sure what you were trying to do here. The usual way is to type the
>> word sudo followed by the command you want to execute as root. It then
>> prompts you for your own password. Subsequent use of sudo within some
>> time limit will not need your password again.
> 
> 
> Maybe you didn't notice that I posted the exact details of what I did
> which as far as I know is exactly what you call the `usual' way.
> 
> It never gets to the prompting for password part.  Instead an error
> occurs which says my machine cannot be resolved.
> 
> But lets drop this since I've deleted that attempt and am now running
> the server version which does not have all liabilities of the desktop
> version. 
> 
> Don't mean to sound rude and thanks for you input.
> 
> 

Your more than likely to have the same issue with the server as this is 
a VM/sudo/upgrade problem and is very well known.

For example,

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sudo/+bug/32906

There are a number of solutions in the forums which pretty much say;

make sure that in the /etc/hosts file 127.0.1.1 points to your hostname 
(same as in the file /etc/hostname). Hostname of the VM not the real 
machine.

There are many ways to get there 'gksu gedit /etc/hosts',

Menu > System > Administration > Network > Hosts

And of course the above mentioned recovery (single user) mode from the 
grub menu.

HTH

Dave