You may not believe this, but I have been trying to understand the system. I
was a long-time (ca. 15 years) debian user who never had any difficulties
with using sudo and who doesn't even remember having to do anything as root.
I got along fine with sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade until each
successive incarnation of debian came along, whereupon I found the need for
expensive but productive professional help. I would have been better off each
time buying a new hard drive, loading the new version of the OS from an
iso-derived Installation DVD, and then re-importing all my files from the
former hard drive. That is my plan for my laptop PC running a proprietary OS,
made more urgent because of its failing hard drive. The drawback (if that is
what it is) is the long file-transfer process.
I think what we both are saying is that the "advanced" login in my grub menu
is of no use at all, as I can do everthing good or bad that I want by
invoking sudo. Mine is a sole-operator installation with administrative tasks
needed every few years at worst. That was my debian experience. I used sudo
apt-get install only from the debian repository, and that kept me out of
trouble until the new distro's came along and I was kicked out of the
abandoned ones.
Forty-eight years of dealing with MAD, Fortran, Basic, TruBasic and such
development languages have convinced me to stay away from Administrator tasks
as much as possible.
Thanks for all your quick and responsive replies.
We should be able to call this thread "solved" now !
