[Klug-general] My earlier plea re Skype

[Fish]

 PatRichardson at aol.com wrote:
> In truth, I think the problem will have to be on my system because,
> related to "System Install Packages". I am asked for "Authentication as
> "Root"". It needs an administrator's password.

I'm somewhat surprised that it didn't ask you for your user password,
and use gksudo (or similar) to escalate privileges.  That's how most
modern distros handle administrative tasks.  (As alan says)

I'm not all that familiar with the stock Linux distro that comes on
the Acer laptops, but if it's anything like the other ones I've
encountered it will be somewhat resistant to letting you change things
like your root password.

George's instructions will allow you to reset your root password -
however if you find that doesn't work, change your user password (you
will have one, but gdm may be set to automatically log in as you
without prompting for it) and then use that.