Hi

The first indication I had of this problem, was Synaptic refused to run.

In terminal, typing sudo apt-get install packagename, I got this response

sudoers file: syntax error, line 1 <<<
sudo: parse error in /etc/sudoers near line 1

I've searched various forums, and learnt a little about visudo, and booting recovery mode , and entering the root shell to run visudo, but I can't see what the problem is, and also how to edit it, and save the edits.

Trying to run visudo in a terminal brings these responses


alf@Laptop:~$ visudo
visudo: /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
alf@Laptop:~$ su visudo
Unknown id: visudo

I'm running kubuntu, based on ubuntu 8.04

Alf

There seems to be a syntax error in the file /etc/sudoers

You will need to boot into the recovery mode ( the option presented at the Grub menu ) or boot using a recovery disk/Knoppix, mount the partition and view/edit the contents of the file /etc/sudoers

Thanks for the reply


that was response when trying to run sudo in terminal.

The problem is now fixed, an additional line had been added before line 1, how it happened , I know know, as I didn't even know about this file until this problem struck.

Further searching brought me to this site

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/fixsudo

very wel laid out, very informative

Alf