Thanks for the helpful replies folks !! MrMagic, I did all the stuff in the posts you linked - even installed users-admin, but the root account remains hidden from me. The 1st link leads to a write up which assumes you use Unity - and I forgot to mention that this old PC has Ubuntu Mate - my bad - sorry 'bout that !!! Lite8, I appreciate the info - and still, I wish to totally de-obfuscate the root account & hoping there is a way to do it. Thanks.
Not sure if this will be applicable to Ubuntu, but I was trying to get root login to my raspberry pi via WinSCP the other week and had to follow these instructions Login, and edit this file: sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config Find this line: PermitRootLogin without-password Edit: PermitRootLogin yes Close and save file reboot or restart sshd service using: /etc/init.d/ssh restart Set a root password if there isn't one already: sudo passwd root Now you can login as root, but I recommend you using strong password or ssh-keys Looks like it's only for SSH root login though
Thanks. It is just amazing to me to see what a difficult thing this turns out to be. (It actually stinks of M$-like tactics on the part of Ubuntu - removing user's choices...too much.)
This is why Linux will never become a mainstream desktop OS, if this was Windows it would have a toggle switch in settings Allow root login?: Yes / No
Yeah, I don't know why Ubuntu does this sort of thing. The first thing I do when logging into my Ubuntu servers is type sudo su. I don't understand the insistence of typing sudo before every single command. The only reason I log into these servers is to do admin stuff anyway. I don't run GUI's on my servers so I haven't needed to do what you had to figure out. I haven't logged into a DE with root in about 10 years either though. I guess I'm just used to working with the command line for admin stuff. Of course I don't feel the need to preach if someone wants to. Each to their own.
^^ yep I agree really is annoiyng every time we need sudo for any thing; but depend who are using machine
Now that this is more or less solved - I will add that this has bugged me for a while about Ubuntu, enough so that I had it fixed on earlier versions & it never gave me a bit of trouble. Apparently the control freaks have taken their obsession with convergence to a worse extreme with newer versions. What exactly brought me back to this was trying to get a new printer working for my older friends after changing the system h/w...and why, you may ask ?? The driver installation said it succeeded - but it failed to work - so I was trying to remove it & start over - and was stopped. Again - why ?? It was installed at the user level - but the files belonged to root for some reason and no amount of anything would let me clear them - not sudo, not su, not a root file manager session, not via command line - nuttin worked. CHOWN ?!? Fuggedaboudit - total no-go. Blocked. Every which way. Deletion ?!? Not an option. What then ?!? I dunno. Since I have the old h/w & OS installation here - before wiping it for new stuff I wanted to get to the bottom of this... And the OS would not let me - hence the query. Aside of all the above - I am the sole user of my PC - and it is MY PC - so whatever I want to do is for ME to choose. PERIOD. My stuff - my choices - my risks. I know I've said this before, but: The tech world in general has devolved to where it holds ALL users in very low regard; and worse still: The Linux community has fallen prey to the same convergence virus that has everything becoming a phone UI. My 2.5 cents about that ?!?: It just plain old sucks.
I don't want to be rude, but linux / BSD derivatives are pretty much the same. (fine, you should change a string instead of a click, and it has a good reason)
Hi! Ubuntu doesn't have a root password with a very simple reason: every botnet tries to ssh with "root" login. So even if you make something silly, the attacker will not be able to log in to your machine. Some people says it's just security trough obscurity (and maybe it is), but for "average joe" it's more than nothing. If it feels too complicated, there are many other distros, like Debian. What I still don't understand, why smallhagrid wanted to start a GUI with root so hardly. Since you are able to start any process with root privileges, it's kind of pointless (and as he mentioned before, also really insecure). Moreover, linux root user rights != windows administrator user rights. As far as I remember, if you want to get system user rights on windows... that's a totally different story. not just a point and click.
@apad: Because some people are tinkerers. They love to dig in, break things and then fix them. That's how they learn.
I got your point and it's definitely true, but "and some operations are simply not succeeding because I need to be the root user - not with sudo, not nohow that I have been able to find." Maybe he started to search and "discover" things in the the wrong way and a sudo bash could solve all his problems.