[SOLVED] Can I login into root account in Ubuntu?

jkirchner · 07-25-2012, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leosubhadeep

Quite thoughtful and enlightening. But I thought this forum was called "Linux- Newbie" and with my pre-basic knowledge, I thought that a forum is the best classic way to know from the knowledgeable people who want to help out (I sincerely count you among them) by sharing their experience and knowledge and/or by showing them the right paths to the next level to the basics.

When you test a flavour (distro in this case), how often do you stop yourself from trying newer shell commands (like 'sudo'/'apt-get'/'yum'/'vi' and their different aspects and powers) even if it can "killall"? Specially if you you're a developer once giving productivity a higher priority than "power" (like Windows/.NET environment) and now trying to get the power regardless of basic/advanced/whatever knowledge? (A more specific and typical sense).

Thanks for posting in this thread. No offence, please.

The way I test new things is as a user first. I have folders in home that I set up purely for practice so you can try rm and cp and such at no risk to real files.

The other way is to set up a virtual machine with a linux distro installed and try "riskier" new things there. Then it stays isolated from your production/real computer

I develop database applications so I have had my share of oopsies...

leosubhadeep · 07-25-2012, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkirchner

The way I test new things is as a user first. I have folders in home that I set up purely for practice so you can try rm and cp and such at no risk to real files.

I do the same. Always while starting fresh. I did this on good ol' MS-DOS and newer Powershell on Windows, too.

Quote:

The other way is to set up a virtual machine with a linux distro installed and try "riskier" new things there. Then it stays isolated from your production/real computer

I develop database applications so I have had my share of oopsies...

I am using a dedicated machine for linux to learn everything worth learning and testing purpose. So a VM is not required in this case, I presume. On the contrary, I'm planning to use Wine VM on my linux system (just for timepass!)

So it seems logical to try "riskier" (I didn't know the risk, though, when I started the thread) new things, what say?

snowday · 07-25-2012, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by caravel

The man page has the true answer...

Code:

$ man apt-get

To cut a long story short, if you apt-get remove e.g. a meta package, the automatically installed cruft which was pulled in by the package gets left behind, when you next run "apt-get autoremove", the cruft gets removed. Using aptitude instead of apt-get avoids this as it removes automatically installed packages immediately. In a nutshell, it is safe, desirable even, to do an autoremove, and if it takes out half of your system, then you're not administering said system correctly (you could also... you know, read the output and hit the letter "n" when it asks you if you want to remove everything).

One situation I see all the time on the Ubuntu Forums: A user uninstalls one of the default apps (Evolution, for example), which has the side effect of uninstalling the metapackage ubuntu-desktop. Then they run sudo apt-get autoremove and a bunch of important stuff gets removed. (I suspect this might have been what happened to the OP.) We can debate whether that is "correct" but it happens all the time.

If you don't know the "autoremove" function exists and never use it, your system will continue to operate indefinitely no problem. The corollary can't be said.

TobiSGD · 07-25-2012, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

Then they run sudo apt-get autoremove and a bunch of important stuff gets removed. (I suspect this might have been what happened to the OP.) We can debate whether that is "correct" but it happens all the time.

I would find it more interesting to figure out why that happens at all. Not the technical stuff, I know about meta-packages and the consequences of their use. But it is not the case that apt-get will immediately begin to remove packages when you use the autoremove function. It shows you a list what will be removed and the user has to commit the changes. Why is it that many people just seem not to care at all about this? I mean, even a new and inexperienced user should be able to figure out that there is something wrong when the autoremove function spits out a list of 100+ packages.

snowday · 07-25-2012, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

I would find it more interesting to figure out why that happens at all. Not the technical stuff, I know about meta-packages and the consequences of their use. But it is not the case that apt-get will immediately begin to remove packages when you use the autoremove function. It shows you a list what will be removed and the user has to commit the changes. Why is it that many people just seem not to care at all about this? I mean, even a new and inexperienced user should be able to figure out that there is something wrong when the autoremove function spits out a list of 100+ packages.

It's become really trendy to label Ubuntu as "bloated" and I think a lot of new users buy into the myth of "clearing out cruft." There are a lot of untrustworthy tutorials out on the web that include "apt-get autoremove" in lists of "execute these terminal commands routinely to magically make Ubuntu faster" or something. That's my theory as to why, anyway.

TobiSGD · 07-25-2012, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

It's become really trendy to label Ubuntu as "bloated" and I think a lot of new users buy into the myth of "clearing out cruft." There are a lot of untrustworthy tutorials out on the web that include "apt-get autoremove" in lists of "execute these terminal commands routinely to magically make Ubuntu faster" or something. That's my theory as to why, anyway.

OK, that makes sense.

Randicus Draco Albus · 07-25-2012, 08:51 PM

Whether labeling Ubuntu as bloated is trendy or truth, one problem is this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

There are a lot of untrustworthy tutorials out on the web ...

In my worldview, if someone wants to learn how to use a system, the logical sequence should be to first look for documentation on the distribution's website. If the documentation does not exists or is not understood, then look on the distribution's forum. If that also fails, then look at other sources. If someone's first course of action is to rely on joe_blow's_blog for information, instead of their distro's developers, that person deserves whatever he or she gets.

People cannot be protected from their own stupidity.

snowday · 07-25-2012, 09:03 PM

linuxquestions.org is a great resource too! Ask a question (the smart way) and wait 24 hours (don't blindly follow the 1st response) and you are guaranteed a good answer! Be on the lookout for posts like "hi, have you tried the tutorial from this link?" from members with lots of green dots, because those are often the most trustworthy recommendations. One thing I have learned about this site is that if someone gives questionable advice, it gets shot down quickly.

Randicus Draco Albus · 07-25-2012, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

(don't blindly follow the 1st response)

Words of wisdom. You basically stated the same thing I did, but without the cynicism.

jk07 · 07-25-2012, 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

If I am designing an operating system and giving it away for free, then I want the unlimited right to develop the best possible product that I can vouch for and support. These "Ubuntu must allow unlimited root login!" demands make me feel like you are denying the developers the right to be knowledgeable and opinionated about their own pet projects.

Without question a developer has that right. And I have the right to look elsewhere for a distro best suited to my needs.

Wim Sturkenboom · 07-26-2012, 12:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jk07

Without question a developer has that right. And I have the right to look elsewhere for a distro best suited to my needs.

Nobody denies you that right

However, the perceived 'sudo issue' should not be the reason to shop around for something else.

I find Ubuntu very confusing when I dive under the hood. 'upstart', changes in the way configurations work, and so on make me pray that I never have to do too much digging around in Ubuntu.

cynwulf · 07-27-2012, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

One situation I see all the time on the Ubuntu Forums: A user uninstalls one of the default apps (Evolution, for example), which has the side effect of uninstalling the metapackage ubuntu-desktop. Then they run sudo apt-get autoremove and a bunch of important stuff gets removed. (I suspect this might have been what happened to the OP.) We can debate whether that is "correct" but it happens all the time.

If you don't know the "autoremove" function exists and never use it, your system will continue to operate indefinitely no problem. The corollary can't be said.

As I have said, if a user uses aptitude instead of apt-get, they will come across this problem anyway as aptitude removes those dependencies immediately - for me that is the desired behaviour though YMMV.

The cleanest and preferred way to prevent automatic removal of dependencies when a meta package has been removed is to mark all of the meta package's dependencies as manually installed and then remove the packages, e.g. software-center and gnome (meta package).

Code:

# aptitude unmarkauto '?reverse-depends(gnome) | ?reverse-recommends(gnome)'

Where "gnome" is the name of the meta package.

This marks all the dependencies (and recommends) of the gnome meta package as manually installed. You can then safely remove gnome and any dependencies you don't want.