None of the *buntus have a proper root account, i.e. root has no password so there is no way to get into the root account. They are all designed to use sudo to get admin privileges. I'm assuming that the problem you're experiencing with the open as root service may be do to this *buntu peculiarity.
To get to your usual command prompt back in konsole, you can try:
Code:
root@computername:/# su <username>
<enter username password>
