[necrovamp]

I'm a new user to linux, and even have a class in college at the moment called unix lab. One of the great features of linux according to this teacher is that linux runs things without confirmation dialogues. Thats fine, I consider confirmations anything I have to do extra work to run a program or operation.... I've been using uubntu 10.10 and I hope its just I'm missing an option that I need to disable, but everything I do requires something extra.

For example, installing software, have to type in every time, also installing software from terminal have to type in password for sudo every time... programs that I download, I have to right click them, and check them as executable before I can run them... so right now my problem is passwords everywhere. I know in win7, I can turn off user account control, and I'm never asked anything, and even that was easier, i just had to click once. My account is admin, so I never have to run things in "run as administrator" Everything runs exactly how I tell it to, without any extra work.

I like linux, but this password thing is really getting on my nerves, Is there an option that I can add or anything I can do to have linux NEVER ask me for my password again, and just do what I tell it to do.

Or is my teacher wrong, and linux has so much security that its annoying to use.\

Also any other suggestions about ANY other confirmation dialogues I can get rid of now, to save me future trouble.

While I was looking things up, I may have come accros a page, that said ubuntu doesnt have a default root account that you can login to a desktop environment and use.
Is that what I need, and ubunut just doesnt have it?

I can login to root through terminal, but I cannot access a root desktop.

PS, am I just expecting to much, or am I so familiar with win7(windows in general), I'm having trouble adjusting?

[1002richards]

Hi,
Useful info here for sudo and root https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo
including "It avoids the "I can do anything" interactive login by default (e.g. the tendency by users to login as an "Administrator" user in Microsoft Windows systems), you will be prompted for a password before major changes can happen, which should make you think about the consequences of what you are doing."

and "When using sudo, your password is stored by default for 15 minutes. After that time, you will need to enter your password again.
Your password will not be shown on the screen as you type it, not even as a row of stars (******). It is being entered with each keystroke!"

[necrovamp]

thnx, Ill check that site out

and i know about sudo and passwords not showing up, im new to linux but im also good with computers.
My problem hasnt been that I'm having trouble installing anything or with passwords not working
Only that I have to do that extra bit of actually typing in my password over and over again, installing things using software center, updates managing system settings

I'm not afraid of messing things up in linux, mainly because I have no problem at all reinstalling, and if I do mess things up, it can only help me learn.

Originally Posted by 1002richards

Hi,
Useful info here for sudo and root https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo
including "It avoids the "I can do anything" interactive login by default (e.g. the tendency by users to login as an "Administrator" user in Microsoft Windows systems), you will be prompted for a password before major changes can happen, which should make you think about the consequences of what you are doing."

and "When using sudo, your password is stored by default for 15 minutes. After that time, you will need to enter your password again.
Your password will not be shown on the screen as you type it, not even as a row of stars (******). It is being entered with each keystroke!"

[1002richards]

Hi,
I'm no expert with Ubuntu but what I've found really useful to re-install is Remastersys. Once you have your Ubuntu / Debian install all tweaked and with apps installed / removed that suit you, you can easily creat a CD/DVD copy of that using Remastersys. That way if you (as I do) break something you can be back to your fully working system within 20 to 30 mins.

http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/

Richard

[Elvandil]

Please keep in mind that "Linux" is not an operaiting system. It is only a kernel. It makes no sense to refer to "the Linux operating system". Many people have built many different operating systems around that kernel. Ubuntu is one of them, and it is set up very differently from many (most?) other versions of Linux-based operating systems. So something that you learn and do in Ubuntu may be quite different in another Linux-based operating system.

[itsjusme]

Originally Posted by necrovamp

....................................................................
I can login to root through terminal, but I cannot access a root desktop.

PS, am I just expecting to much, or am I so familiar with win7(windows in general), I'm having trouble adjusting?

Older versions of Ubuntu had an option to allow administrator login, under:
SYSTEM>ADMINISTRATION>LOGIN SCREEN
You still had to set a root password though. You can enable root login in newer versions, but they`ve made it a little more obscure.
First, disable AUTOMATIC LOGIN if you enabled it on install. Then open TERMINAL and type:

sudo passwd root

The command below will work too. NOTE:: This is not a typo, it`s passwd, not password!

sudo passwd

This will also work, not sure if theres a difference in how it stores the password , it seems to get the same results.

You will be asked for your password, this is your password that you entered on install.
Then you will be asked for the NEW PASSWORD, this is the password you want for the root account. Enter it twice and if everything went ok it will tell you that the password was updated successfully, there will still be two seperate passwords, one for your regular user account and one for root.

Close terminal and reboot. At the LOGIN SCREEN select OTHER, when it asks for the username, enter root , then the new password you just created. You will be logged in as root and should have a root prompt in terminal.

Try this and see if it relieves some of the password aggravation. Keep in mind that this is not recommended for all the reasons you`ve already read about. I know this works from version 9.1 down, not sure about the newer versions, i`m running 9.1 at the moment. 10.1 doesnt like my dinosaur hardware.