Hi people, I'm new here and pretty new to linux, I first installed linux as ubuntu version 9.04 straight off of a Computer Active CD and liked it so started to delve into file permissions and authorisations, simple stuff I suppose just so I could feel my way around things for a while. Using the built in Ubuntu software centre I downloaded and installed a prog which handles authorisations and I found that very helpful but then through the update manager I installed the latest distribution update (9.10) and now find that the authorisation software only lists a couple of things that I can get to and consequently every time I mount one of my hard disks I'm asked for my admin password even though I am logged in as administrator which is a hassle, a small one but there all the same, as a newbie I realise it must be me not understanding something but I just dont know what, also in the previous version right clicking on the logging out panel gave you an option to remove the 60 second shutdown or restart delay and that has disappeared in the new version, again its really only just a nuisance thing but I find that sorting out this sort of thing will help me to understand the system, so if anyone can understand my ramblings then hows about a pointer or two please

Many Thanks, Terry.

What was that prog again? How do you mount your disks? I don't know what 60 seconds delay you are talking about.

There's a default timeout option in sudo, usually set to 5 mins. It means if you sudo bash for example, you've got 5 mins to do other cmds at root level before your root privs expire and you have to redo the sudo.
In the OP's case, sounds like it's set to 1 minute.

To Agrouf,

The authorisations program is to be found listed in the software source selection provided in the distribution package and is described as 'PolicyKit-gnome provides a D bus session bus that is used to bring up authentication dialogs used for obtaining privileges. Version 0.9-1ubuntu3.'
I have 3 HDD's the first being partitioned as C & D, the second designated E which are both NTFS and form the original XP setup, the third is a 1 Terabyte drive dedicated to the linux operating system either OS available at startup using the grub bootloader.
When I boot up into linux it goes straight to my desktop without asking for a username or password as in the original setup I configured it to log me in as administrator, any program I run that requires file access on any other drive other than the boot drive and the system prompts me for the admin password so as to mount that drive, any program that is except for 'Dolphin' which just mounts them anyway and leaves them mounted after exiting with their icons displayed on the desktop. Much of this info is probably irrelevant to my query but as I don't know what I'm talking about it seems the best way is to just impart any information that I think might help, if the real answer is 'please go away and read a book' then do say so.
Unfortunately I cant remember the exact sequence of events regarding the delay thing but, in the top right hand corner of the desktop I left click on the name there (in my case terry) which provides a drop down panel giving various options, two of which being to restart or shutdown, choosing either one then brings up a window with options to either cancel or perform the selected action immediately, else the action will be performed anyway after the displayed timeout which is 60 seconds.
In the previous dist (9.04) there was another option in the drop down panel, and this is where it gets a bit hazy which allowed the user to remove the delay and perform the action immediately. This option is nowhere to be found in this version.

Thanks for your time, as an electrical technician I do have a fairly logical approach to most problems and I do intend to if not master this subject then at least get a reasonable grip on how to do some basic programming eventually, I'm fed up with Microsoft ruling my life and fouling things up with no explanation, since installing linux I have through trial and error manually installed a few things, learnt a lot about file permissions and have recently started to use the 'Wine' windows compatability program with what I consider astonishing results especially using Adobe Photoshop 7, I'm amazed at how well it works considering the file system/handling differences, having said that I'm quite warming to the Gimp F-Spot photo manager

Many thanks Terry Bruce.

This is so not good idea to log in as root in graphical environment and that without prompting for user name and password is really bitter. You should think of this once again as this can be potentially harmful. Very harmful.
But I think you are not logging in as root but a user that has administrative privileges using sudo. So that user technically is not root. It can just gain access to it with sudo on temporary basis when needed. If you are mounting the drive using command line options then you will need to provide your password as only root is allowed to use the mount command. But you should be able to mount the drive graphically from Places.

Also this 60 second time buffer is hard coded in Ubuntu Karmic for shutdown, reboot. It can not be removed as it was possible in Jaunty. Sorry.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

Your journey has just begun therefore a few links to aid you;

Linux Documentation Project
Rute Tutorial & Exposition
Linux Command Guide
Utimate Linux Newbie Guide
LinuxSelfHelp
Getting Started with Linux
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
Virtualiation- Top 10

The above links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!