2008/9/22 Chris Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > A friend at work has installed Ubuntu (hardy heron) on an Asus EEE pc. When > he plugs in a in a USB flash drive, he gets an error message explaining that > he need SU rights to do this. this surprises me because I have no trouble > on my machine. > > I said he should see what happens if he logs in as "root". He knows nothing > about "root" and certainly does not know root's password. I said he should > remember being prompted for this in the install. "no". > > In the install, he created a login only for himself (which works) except > that he cannot use his USB flash drive. > > The system is clearly trying to mount the drive when it is plugged in. It > just thinks the that access rights do not allow it. > > Any suggestions? (remember that he does not know root's password)
By default Ubuntu does not prompt for nor set the root password and instead uses `sudo`. If you find a need to use `su` you can either set the password using `sudo passwd` or use `sudo -i`. While there is the brute force solution above, it sounds like there is a separate issue, because as you said, it usually just works. One possible issue may be his account privileges. While the sole account that Ubuntu creates _should_ be an administrator, it might be worth checking it. Go to: System->Administration->Users and Groups->(username)->Properties->User Privileges Make sure that 'Access external storage devies automatically' is ticked. To change these options you need to click 'Unlock' and enter the user's password (uses gksudo). IIRC in the older versions (pre Hardy) you are prompted before the User settings app will open. Hope this helps, cheers, Owen. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
