Group 'admin' gid problem

[Tim Frost]

On Fri, 2009-07-17 at 08:46 -0400, Edward Lee wrote:
> Fair enough, and I just tried your solution.  The problem with it is
> that some graphical elements of GNOME seem to depend on the user
> being in the 'admin' group.  For example, the Main Menu tool only
> shows/allows to be checked 'Add/Remove Programs' and 'Software Sources'
> when the user is present in the 'admin' group.  It's not a showstopper,
> but it's really annoying at times.
> 
Why? Ubuntu is set up so that the first user defined on a system is the
(default) administrator of the system, and is a member of the admin
group (among others). The tools that you cite are administrator tools,
so should only be accessible to people who are designated as
administrators, and so are members of the admin group.

Membership of the admin group, and of other special groups, should be
decided on a per-system basis, rather than being granted globally.

If a user who is not an administrator of the system logs in, they should
not be able to perform administrative tasks.  You seem to be complaining
that this restriction is in force, when it is an explicit part of the
Ubuntu philosophy.

For each machine, a concious decision needs to be made about who should
be authorised to make changes that affect the system, such as installing
or removing software.  For that reason, it makes sense that the default
is to not make a person a member of the admin group.



> -Ed
> 

Tim
-- 
Tim Frost <timfrost at xtra.co.nz>