[reformatted for top-down reading] Levi Smith wrote: > On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 3:07 PM, maverick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Hi everyone I just installed ubuntu on VMware to see how it feels but it >> never asked me to give the system a root password, now I don't know that >> that is. I'm guessing it's probably related to VMware. Any advice would be >> greatly appreciated. >> > I believe my normal system worked the same way and it was the user > password...
That's sorta-but not quite right. It may be useful to know the details. The standard Ubuntu install does not give root a password, but does put the first-created user into the sudoers list (/etc/sudoers). This (required) first user is thus considered the "administrator". All operation requiring root privileges are required to be run via a sudo command. And when user X runs sudo commands, you are asked to give the password for user X (not root), which is the sorta-right part. You may of course give root a password, if you wish, via sudo passwd The Ubuntu policy seems designed to discourage the practice of logging in as root, which is generally considered to be bad because it abandons valuable protections against a) doing unintentional bad things, and b) cracked or malicious programs gaining full privileges. Regards, ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
