??? So if I log into the root account to do maintenance I forget I am using root until I log out, but if I use sudo with every command I do not forget? Your argument is terribly flawed, because sudo with unrestricted root access allows a novice to screw up a system exactly the same way as using the root account, except having to do more typing. The purpose of sudo is to restrict root access to individual users. Sudo with unrestricted root access is pointless.


Because he failed to accomplish his business goals? He is a businessman, not an altruistic philanthropist.


And if Ubuntu disappeared, what woud happen to Mint? Mint Debian Edition would continue, but Mint Ubuntu Edition would also disappear. Mint lives off the work done by Canonical, the same way Ubuntu lives off the work done by Debian. Or do you think distributions are magically created?

The good old "sudo debate" was the systemd debate of it's time. Back then poor old sudo was all we had to worry about. It was much maligned and it turned out that sudo wasn't really "taking your freedom", but that doesn't really make 'buntu's implementation of sudo perfect, secure or well anything really. It was just an odd 'convenience' thing and a gimmick. Configuring sudo so that you can escape via e.g. 'sudo passwd root' or 'sudo su -' or various other escapes, makes sudo essentially pointless.

So no, they didn't do it for security and the argument that they did it because the user is an idiot, is quite ironic.

sudo actually goes back to the 80s (that's right it wasn't invented by Shuttlecock or Comical Ltd).

Currently Todd C Miller - and OpenBSD developer - maintains and develops sudo (for the last 10 years or so). It's very good software - when used for what it's actually designed for and books have been written about it: https://www.michaelwlucas.com/tools/sudo

A home desktop user probably has no need for it, in such scenarios it's a preference. 'su -c' can accomplish much the same, if it's just a matter of "run the command and exit the root shell immediately" being the requirement.

The idea of sudo as set up by default in Linux seems to be to make the user specifically decide to use admin rights every time, limiting the likelihood of a new user damaging their system by making them more conscious of their actions. If you know how to enable root login, you presumably don't need this safety net. It's not hard to figure out how this works or why they did it this way (unless you have an axe to grind against Canonical...hey wait a minute...). I personally have root enabled but I use sudo unless I want to execute several admin commands in a row, in which case I'll use su root. And i did not 'configure sudo so you can escape it", I unlocked the root account, which is disabled by default in Ubuntu. Sudo does exactly what it always did. Meanwhile, Puppy Linux demolishes the entire Unix user model and uses the MS-DOS/Windows 95 model of a single almighty user, and nobody complains about that.

Perhaps...perhaps he doesn't really have any particular business goals anymore because he doesn't need them? One of the things about being rich is that you put your money into investment vehicles that make you more money without any effort on your part. Shuttleworth probably owns quite a few of these and basically gets a stream of free money for the rest of his life. If Canonical doesn't make money he can make up the rest because why not? He's not a working man, he needs something to do with his life, and lots of rich people (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, John Carmack, etc.) pour money into philanthropic projects or ludicrously expensive hobbies just to have something to do with their nearly limitless money and time. People like Shuttleworth are not businessmen in the way the guy who owns your local liquor store is a businessman. If Ed's Wine and Spirits doesn't make money, Ed can't afford to pay his bills. Mark Shuttleworth will never worry about paying his bills.

As for what would happen if Ubuntu disappeared, the forks would continue as community projects, just like Debian and Arch and Slackware and all the rest. Ubuntu itself might even continue as a community project (perhaps under a different name because trademarks are an entirely different ball game from copyright). I'm typing this from a browser (SeaMonkey) that had the plug pulled on it by Mozilla around fifteen years ago and the Mozilla community just picked it up, gave it a new name, and kept going. They'd base future updates on Debian instead of Canonical's Ubuntu and business would continue as usual. Free software projects live as long as their user community are willing to maintain them.

Most people use command history, which almost eliminates the need to keep prefixing with sudo.

'su -c' does the same kind of thing.

If the user can enter their own password to become root and run commands, then I fail to see how that prevents them from damaging their system?
Except it's not a "safety net". sudo as configured by Ubuntu is not even "pseudo security", it's just a convenience/gimmick.
Yes, a "convenience" thing...
If you can unlock the root account or su to root from sudo, then you've escaped sudo. It's likely you didn't configure sudo, but used Ubuntu's pointless and insecure implementation.

You're deliberately playing dumb and it's wearing on my patience. I already explained to you how knowing how to use gpasswd to unlock root is basically a test to see if the user has a modicum of terminal knowledge or at least the willingness to open Google and learn something. Also, what, exactly is wrong with convenience? Why shouldn't things be convenient? Is your real problem that Ubuntu's convenience allows people to use Linux that you would prefer were excluded? I hope not, as the only reasonable reaction to that would not be an argument, but total contempt.

Well no, I'm not "playing dumb" - your "logic" as to why Ubuntu implemented sudo so poorly is just your opinion presented as fact. So, if you haven't the "patience" to deal with opposing viewpoints, I can't help you.

Mr. Shuttleworth is a very savvy businessman who certainly did accomplish his business purposes.

His strategy is quite different from that of Red Hat, which by design is a publicly-traded company (a fact that I personally am quite happy about), but also legitimate and very well-considered. Yes, Mark knows exactly what he is up to ...

Ubuntu implemented sudo exactly as would best suit users who have never used Linux before, so they don't need to know more than one password and the sudo for each command encourages deliberation before doing superuser tasks. If you don't like this setup, you are free to reconfigure it however you like (it is Linux, after all), but Ubuntu's out of the box UX was designed by professionals who know what they're doing, and they've tailored it to a sort of user who is not you. You seem to fall under the same delusion a lot of other Linux forum people have that the only users who matter are experienced administrators or hackers, but you are actually a tiny minority of home computer users, and Ubuntu is designed as a home desktop/laptop OS for "human beings"--ordinary people, while still being a fully featured GNU/Linux distro with a package manager that allows for extensive customization. This means it may not necessarily use what hackers consider the "best" way of doing things out of the box, but the decisions to include systemd, pulseaudio, sudo, etc. were made for good reasons. If you don't like it, replace or reconfigure those parts however you want, or use a distro that better suits your purposes. Your "opposing point of view" is actually incredibly narrow and self-serving, which is why I have little respect for it.

Actually Linux at it's inception was made by hackers, for hackers..
That's like saying the atomic bomb was "made for good reasons"..

Well it might have been in 1991 but it's now used by all sorts of other people, and those people, as Linux users, get to influence the course of distro development, whether they be server administrators, educators, embedded system designers, or, yes, ordinary people who lost their Windows recovery disc or have an old Mac that is no longer being supported by Apple or whatever and heard about this nifty free operating system from social media. If the existence of a Linux distro that provides a no-fuss installation and is set up to provide a complete UX for new users right out of the box makes you feel jealous at the mundanes using "your" toys, well, too bad. And while I think the move towards smartphones will make PCs more of a geek thing than it used to be and give Linux a greater market share relative to Linux, the incoming geeks will be a different sort from traditional Unix/Linux hackers with their own priorities, and may be more interested in say, extreme case mods or overclocking than the distinction between sudo and su.

As for sudo and the atom bomb, you can tell me when sudo blows up two Japanese cities and kills a quarter of a million people. I'll wait.

Well unfortunately they wont be able to do much as those smartphones will undoubtedly run on proprietary hardware that only runs through non-free programs.. And Google ultimately steers the direction of Android as a platform and project, not the "hackers/geeks", unlike is the case with Linux..

Well if the nuclear systems are running Linux, then someone can just sudo su - to get root access and then arbitrarily launch nuclear commands...

That's not what I said. I was mostly talking about ex-Windows users using Linux to run their hobby machines or an Android user trying out a PC to see what it's like, or because a PlayStation 6 doesn't have sufficient Spousal Approval Factor and the SO wants something with a practical application. They'd be more likely to use Linux because Windows will take the brunt of the decline of the PC ecosystem (though Windows will remain the biggest player). The mention of case mods and overclocking should have clued you in to the fact that I was still talking about the future of the desktop with smartphones being mentioned in terms of how they affect the desktop.

Also don't kid yourself, the nuclear systems are running OS/360 or some other horrendous POS because the money for new computers has been delayed for 40 years in the name of more tax cuts for the rich.

Anyway, if you're pissed off at sudo that much, sudo apt-get remove sudo probably works. I wouldn't try it myself because I like sudo but you are welcome to!

P.S. for big multi-user Ubuntu systems the peons wouldn't have access to sudo and would have to get a member of the sudo/wheel usergroup to do things for them.

That is your opinon and should be expressed as such. People can then state why they agree or disagree with you. Instead, you are stating your opinion as fact, and it is not.

Explaining what sudo is and what it was designed for, and that a certain distribution uses it in a pointless manner, does not translate to elitism.

Again, you're only seeing it from your perspective. Many people in Ubuntu's target demographic will never read a man page and consider such things a waste of time better spent doing the things they want. Ubuntu set up a way of handling user escalation to suit them. It may not be the "right" way according to veteran hackers, but nobody on the dev team and few in the user base care. They don't care. You cannot make them Unix hackers, they don't want to be and will never be. More of them will come. People wanted Linux to be a competitive desktop OS for years; now it is, but instead of adopting your culture, the desktop users are bringing their own with them.

But, again, the magic of Linux is that you can rip out a distro's predetermined way of doing things and replace it with your own, or use one of hundreds of other distros who do things in a different way. You can't just replace UAC with a totally different system in Windows.

For the record I have nothing against sudo, I was more referring to systemd, but I will say but Ubuntu's implementation of sudo it poor if you leave it as it's defaults. With that out of the way I'll have you know that you don't have to be some Leet Hacker to understand the basics of sudo such as white listing policies..