Hi guys!

This situation drives me crazy. I've installed a fresh copy of Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.3 and I want to have my VPN up and running but it fails miserably.

I've installed the OS like anyone else and ended up with two accounts, one I named administrator and one that I use daily named yufi (yeah, that name came about in windows when I got tired of reinstalling it and hammered my keyboard randomly for a name, somehow I liked it and it got stuck ever since :-) Sorry, got off topic here ;-)

My yufi account is an ordinary account with no permissions, as it should be. When I use the GUI to install some software I need to type my admin password and everything works as it should. Some software, such as HMA-VPN must be installed via the terminal and here is where my problems start.

When following instructions how to install the VPN the terminal asks me for password for yufi, I don't understand why because it has no permissions to install anything, but I do as I'm asked, and it doesn't install it because I don't have the permission (go figure). In the GUI for other programs it asks me for my administrator password and that works.

So I've been looking for answers about that and why but either I don't understand what I'm doing wrong or something is missing. This was also the reason to why I had to reinstall the OS again as my attempt to fix this made my computer hang and behave strange and now I dare not to try again without some expertise.

I know this may not be much to work with but it's a start. Tell me what you need to know and I'll give it.

See ya later then, I hope :-/

looks like you haven't heard about sudo. When you want to install something you need to use the root account. You can reach it either by entering its password (that works when you use GUI), but there is another way when you are using CLI. It is called sudo. You need to configure your user (yufi) to be able to execute sudo, otherwise it will not work.
Alternative solution: you will switch to root manually using su (not sudo) and afterward you can install your VPN software.

Ah, sorry, I forgot about that in my hopelesness ;-) I know sudo and I've tried that too but you said something that I probably missed, I need to configure my user (yufi) to be able to execute sudo. I think my problem lies there, help me, how do I go about fixing this?

you can find a lot of tutorials/examples on the net, choose your preferred one. Here is an example: https://www.linux.com/tutorials/conf...nation-example

A standard install of Mint will require you to create at least one user before the installation will complete. That user will be the primary user and will have root/sudo privileges. Generally, no need to create a separate admin account but of course, you can. If the user yufi is the primary user, s/he should have sudo privileges and if that user does not, then either you changed something or it was not the primary user created during the install. Reading the link posted above should help and you can also take a look at the Ubuntu documentation on using sudo at the link below which would be the same for Mint.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

Ok, thanks. I did this, had to install emacs in order to follow the "simple" commands:

# export EDITOR=emacs; visudo

Next is this that should happen:

This will open /etc/sudoers in the emacs editor. You can use any editor you like… ankit, jed, vim, whatever.Now that you have the /etc/sudoers file open, it’s time to configure sudo.

Sounds easy peasy... below is the result right off the bat

yufi@yufi-K53SM:~$ export EDITOR=emacs; visudo
visudo: /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
yufi@yufi-K53SM:~$ # export EDITOR=emacs; visudo
yufi@yufi-K53SM:~$

I also tried the # in case that had a meaning, like I said, I'm apparently a f'ing noob at this.

I feel like a retard right away, what am I missing here? I'd like to learn this in a normal pace and not when I actually need something done because that's when it goes south and ends up with a reinstall of the OS as nothing works.

Thanks

(best part in this is that I can have a good laugh about it later :-D

I downloaded Linux Mint 19.3 for x64 and got a oem version that I installed. In that process I created the yufi account. The other account was oem and I found in Linux start menu where I could finalize the OS for customers so I did. There I made the admin account I called administrator and then went back to yufi as the user I use in Linux. It's an ordinary account with no permissions. Installing software via the GUI works great but installing software with the terminal denies me that, I don't have permission. Somehow, the root privileges, that should be active for 15 minutes when using sudo does not work. There I am, having no clue what to do about it.

Anyone have some solutions? The above link didn't help me at all so...

Thanks.

An OEM install is not going to be the same as a normal installation. The Mint site at the link below explains the process. Based on that I'm not sure why you would want or need an admin account.

https://linuxmint-installation-guide...atest/oem.html

Ok, listen, all I want is to install my VPN and it fails and everything after that is a result because of it. I cannot install it and I cannot for my life understand why not. Something with permissions which works in one place but not in another.

I did not ask for an oem distribution but that was what I found when I was looking for a Linux Mint to install on my computer. There was x86 and amd64 and nothing else besides a lot of languages and versions and what have you, I think. You know, I searched for a version I could burn on a DVD in order to install and since there was no clear hint on what exactly to download as there where a lot of different downloadable links and whatever.......

Ok, this may be clear as clean water to you but for me, this is all confusing.... and you're not helping me. I mean, as awesome as Linux may be, there seem to be a resistance to give me accurate information on how to fix my problem. And I'm certain that this is easy as hell to fix, we're talking about Linux here, the awesome OS, so what's the problem??

It's like I'm in a car and I have never seen a car before, so I ask how do I start it, what next, gears? Ok, where is that, aha, the stick and you need to press down the left pedal in order to put the first gear in place.... etc! You get the picture. I need to get the VPN in place so I can go about my things myself! I have no interest in using admin permissions as they do in Windows, that is idiotic and completely against the idea when using Linux. The security is number one.... hence me wanting to install something as simple as a VPN... turns out, it was not that simple at all and you don't seem to see the issue I'm up against.

So again, can someone give me something to work with? Please? Or at least, give me a link to a proper distribution I can download and install instead?

Can you log into your "admin" account or "oem" and add "yufi" to the sudo group instead of editing /etc/sudoers? If it's automatically set to be able to use sudo, which I think is the case, you won't have to edit the file. You can try this by issuing the following command:
If not, I'd just install the regular (not OEM) version of LM from here and avoid separating the "admin" and "yufi" users. The many links on that page are mirrors: the ISO file is the same no matter which link you click on, but each link points to a server in a different location so you can choose the one closest to you. That gives you a faster download time. I'm guessing you tried to find an ISO with a Google search and that's why you ended up with the wrong one. For any distribution, a better idea is to go to a distribution's official website and finding the Download page, which should normally be in prominent view.
Or you can switch to a distro with a root password. Given that you're new to Linux, PCLinuxOS or MX Linux might work for that.

Thank you. The command you gave didn't work either so I'll just download the ISO file and reinstall it all. I'll let you know later how it goes ;-)
No, eventhough searching the internet has created the saying "google this and that" I use the Duck duck go as Google only returns crap.

Thanks again, see you later then ;-)

instead of reinstalling the os you need to learn how to use sudo. Reinstall will not solve this issue.

Ah, I also use DDG, but it's the same regardless of your search engine.
Given the weirdness of the OP's initial setup and their newness to Linux, I'd be inclined to say they should reinstall regardless. Even if they got sudo working, I'm fairly certain something else about that setup will cause more problems later. And given how fresh the install is, it's not a huge loss to reinstall.

Oh but it will... and did, because me being a noob at this managed to mess things up without realizing it, until now! :-D You know, I went into this after years of working in Windows and with that mindset, I administrated the accounts so it would be safe and hard to penetrate. Turns out, I didn't have to do that, it is already setup in such a way that what I did was making it worse, for ME!

So, after I face palmed myself a bunch of times, I now know that when it is installed, leave the f*ing thing be, it is awesome as it is.

Like i said in my first comment I think, this is probably something I can laugh about later, turns out, the joke is all on me LOL :-D Well, thatś how you learn isn't it, trial and error. And you may have learned something too, a new unthinkable way to mess things up!

I'm about to install the VPN now and I'm fairly confident that it will work this time and if not, I think I'm gonna shoot myself ;-)

I'll return later with an update on my doings :-)

Ok, I'm back again, at it for the... whatever! I lost count. Anyway, here goes:

I've been in contact with the HMA support and I still have issues, as usual ;-) and my last reply from them came about some minutes ago and I find it, as usual, a bit confusing. Read below, with comments from me I made now (*):

------------------------------

Again, you are not performing all proper steps. If your scripts are unzipped on Desktop, you shouldn't be running these commands from Downloads folder. (* Well I moved them first so that I know where they are, not good I guess) Please access folder where scripts are via Terminal, and with cd command. (* Now, I did that, unzipped them onto the Desktop and then I'm told to run the command "sudo ./hma-openvpn.sh" which I did and get "command not found")

Also, re install doesn't mean that user permissions are fine (* Well I had to since I screwed it up earlier), and you need to create sudo user (* Ok, I need help with that because instructions I found didn't work, I don't really know what I'm doing and what is wrong.) If you remember, you have been declined for DNS changes. Please follow all recommendations precisely and you will be fine. (* Well, I think I do, at least I try :-/) There is no point that we are going back and forward with the same steps. (* I strongly agree on that :-D)

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So that's the story of my current life. At least I've actually learned a little in this process but I need a some more assistance. So what do you say, am I f'd or is there still hope? :-o