Hi! I've finally installed Ubuntu, but there is no root user. Am I supposed to go to users and groups and add it? Actually it's there, but there are no privileges. Should I add the privileges that my account has to the root account, and, if so, what privileges should I uncheck and/or leave for my account? Also, the password for the root account has asterisks showing a password---do I highlight and delete that and type a new password? Additionally, do I need an anti-virus program? I recently upgraded my AVG anti-virus for XP(I'm dual booting systems) and saw that they have a linux version. If I need anti-virus, do I also need any spyware programs? Any and all responses will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

check out this short page: https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/...-and-sudo.html.

i believe on ubuntu, and it's derivatives, there is no 'root' account. to do something with 'root' status use 'sudo <commandName>'. you will be prompted to type _your_ password.

regarding antivirus and spyware, this has been discussed many, many times here.. so check it out. short answer would be: 'if you want'. you should be fine without them.

I don't do Ubuntu so I don't know about your root travails, but root is supposed to be omnipotent, that is root can do all things, and others can only do some things, that root allows. About Antivirus, well AVG has a linux version and there a few others out there, but there's not much threat of Linux virae at the present time. Still a free product is a free product and it couldn't hurt to have an anti virus.

Thanks for the responses. I'm a newbie, I messed around with Fedora for about a month a couple of years ago, but I remember it said to have a root account and a user account. The root account had all the privileges, and the user account was for basically everything you wanted to do, like going on the internet. The documentation said not to go on the internet with the root account, since you left your computer open to be hacked and accessed, since that account had all the privileges. That being said, the user account created in Ubuntu has all the root privileges---it is the administration account. You don't need to go to a console and use the sudo command---anything you click on that needs administration privilege will enable a message box asking for the password. So what I'm wondering is, should I give the privileges to the root account to use when I need the administrative privileges and just leave some privileges in the user account to run programs and go on the internet to keep my computer secure. Thanks.

Your best bet is to just use the normal user that you created during installation. This is not a root or administrator user. The only difference between this user and others is that it is in the /etc/sudoers file, and therefore is allowed to use Sudo.

When you need to do something that needs admin rights, if it is GUI you should get the gksudo dialog box asking for your password. If it is command line, type sudo before the command.

If you really want a proper root user (it actually exists, but has no password) just run "sudo passwd root". This will ask you for your users password, and then ask you to enter a password for root twice. Then you can use the root user as normal.

I hope this helps
--Ian