Just installed Xubuntu and when I log in as the user I created, It uses the same password as the root password. I am confused, why would the user have the same password as root? also.... When I try to login as root either in the GUI or from command line I cannot.

Any ideas why this is?

Ive never used ubuntu before.

ok, now that's WIERD!!!

take a look in /etc/passwd

it's format is:

username : password : UID : GID : blah blah blah

root should be UID and GID 0.
your username should be something higher, say over 100 or over 1000

This is the user line:
joey:x:1000:1000:joey,,,:/home/joey:/bin/bash

I dont dont see a uid or gid anywhere in /etc/passwd

The root password is disabled in all the ubuntu variants.

See here for one of many explanations on the www.

The user you created does not have the same password as root. In Xubuntu, root has no password. This in effect disables logging in to root. This is why you cannot log in to root.

In that line you posted from /etc/passwd, that x in the second field indicates the password is stored in /etc/shadow. If you look at shadow (root access needed) you will see the encrypted password in the second field. If you look at root, you will see a "!" in that field.

In *ubuntu flavors, root login is disabled by default. It easy to fix, add a password to root.

As for the question why would the user have the same password as root? Why not? I do this on all my personal systems. I am the only one who accesses them.

On many distro's, including Ubuntu and Fedora, the sudoers file is configured so that a person in a particular user group is allowed to sudo to root. It it configured so that you use your own password, to prove you are that person.

The advantage to this is that you can assign someone to the group who needs to run a root command, without giving that person the root password. So here the advantage is when there are several people administering the computer. Also, sudo commands are logged telling you who executed a command if you have a question later.

Oh, so in Ubuntu you cannot log into Root under a GUI as if its a separate user like in slackware?

You never login under the GUI as root.

Kind regards

Well it's possible, but you need to cheat your way in, and go against their administrative model which generally works very well. You should never need to run X as root, absolutely never.

I always run X as root (In slackware) because alot of times what I am trying to do (like mount a drive or copy files) as a user I cannot, because of permssions problems.
I guess in Ubuntu I wont be able to login as root under X.

You're doing it wrong. That's what sudo is for. Again, there's no need to run X as root.

Back to my original problem....

When I first startup Ubuntu I enter my password and I log in, but when I need to do something that requires root priveledges I enter the same password and am given access.

Something doesnt seem right with this?

Take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo

Kind regards

Again, using "TargetPW" in the sudoers file wouldn't make sense in Ubuntu since the target (root) has no password.

One may wish a certain group of users to only perform certain root commands. Letting them know the root password would allow them to do anything.

For mounting external drives, look at the "users" mount option in your fstab file. It allows mounting an unmounting those filesystems as a normal user.

Also look at installing the ivman package. Then you could use the `halmount' command to mount, unmount & eject removable drives. If your system uses policykit, look at adding the policy allowing the desktop session user mounting removable drives.

The "sudo" is configurable and quite flexible. There is no possibility to make default configuration applicable for everyone. Administrator of computer need to adjust configuration for their needs if default does not match. The default for Ubuntu is good for home usage. If you want to give for administration root or other user password read "man sudoers".