[Wylug-help] Laptop networking woes

[Smylers]

Mike Goodman writes:

> Ubuntu ... I found exactly what put me off Mandrake when I tried it
> some time ago. The root user is not set up during the installation
> procedure.

That's a good thing.  In general it's better not to have people be
logged in as the root user, and just to gain root privileges for
particular commands that need them:

* You have to think more about which commands actually need root privs,
  and you're less likely to inadvertently to run something as root when
  you didn't mean to (for example by typing into the wrong window).

* If a computer has several people who need root access they can each
  keep their preferred config, and avoid imposing their preferences on
  others.

* You can temporarily give somebody root access without having to give
  them the root password.

* If somebody should no longer have access to the computer you just have
  to disable their main account; you don't also have to change the root
  password (cos their isn't one).

* You don't have to remember a root password as well as your own, which
  avoids the temptations of it being too easy to guess or having to
  write it down somewhere.

> When I want to do anything, I need a password and whatever password
> it's looking for, it's not one I gave to it.

I think it should be your user's normal account password, the one you
use to log in with.

> I really don't want to go through another long learning curve before I
> can do some work on the dratted thing.

There isn't a long learning process to this, honest.  The sudo command
runs a command as another user, root by default.  So this is you:

  $ ls

and this is root:

  $ sudo ls

sudo access is only available for users that have had it configured.  By
default it asks for your password when you use it (to verify that you
are you, and not somebody who's sneaked into your office at lunchtime),
but it remembers this for 5 or 10 minutes -- so you don't get pestered
for a password when running several commands in a row.

The file /etc/sudoers configures all this stuff, but the defaults are
often adequate.  The command visudo should be used for editing that
file.

Even if you don't go for a Linux distribution that sets things up like
this itself, I'd still recommend sudo as a much safer and more friendly
way of working.

Smylers
-- 
May God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a
difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be do