• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

ubuntu super user

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
Joined
Dec 13, 2005
Location
Right Here Right Now
ok, even though i did use linux a couple times before, Im still a noob, so deal with me a little. Im just setting my rig up for seti@home and maybe some web browsing, and I got that all set up, so hopefully this would be both my first and last question. Basically, I have Ubuntu 6.10. I need to install the drivers for my graphics card, and it says I need super user rights. I searched google, and it said enter su "username", enter, enter password. Im the only user on the system, so I entered my username and password. nothing. I know Im doing something right, because when i enter something different, it says, su:authentication failure, sorry. any ideas?

And yes, I know I should have researched this before installing linux, but winders died and this was the only thing i could do until I got my winders cd back.
 
if you want to use the su command instead of sudo you can do sudo passwd root > it will prompt you for your user name password for sudo and then you can set the root password. after you have set the root password do su - and then type in the password you just set.
 
splat said:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

i gotta say, i still think Gentoo has the best wiki of all the Linux distros.
Mos'def. :thup:

In Ubuntu, logging in as root is discouraged. The theory is prefixing all your commands with 'sudo' as a regular user will prevent you from completely hosing your system, which, in turn, will prevent you from saturating the support forums with "AAAGH I KILLED IT HELP PLZ!". :)

Root...with great power comes great responsibility.
 
it's not just Ubuntu that frowns on that, all Unix derivatives and clones frown on logging in to the system as root. Normal practice is to login as an underpriviledged user and then use "su" to gain super-user rights. sudo and fakeroot effectively do the same thing, but they also allow the user to be limited more and not gain full control, like su allows.
 
Something I've wondered, if you set the root password (to allow login as root), is there a way to unset it, so you cant'?
 
i'm not 100% sure, i guess if something really went wrong and you needed the super user to fix something, you could always boot off a cd to save the system. I know one of my slackware upgrades screwed up my /etc/shadow file and I couldn't login as root or su, so I had to boot of the cd to fix it.
 
Well, I was able to get it working. Ofcourse, Im still getting the same problem I had in winders (crashing/lockup in 3d mode, thought winders was throwing a fit, cant get the restore cd for another 2 weeks, thought I would give linux a shot now). I know I installed it right, because before I was getting screen tearing in Firefox and in word documents, which is better now. Now Im guessing either the gfx card or my psu is throwing the fit. Oh well. lucky for me I installed ubuntu on my ext. hdd so my data is still intact.
 
Back