Sudo everything

[CalcProgrammer1]

How do you do it? I'm getting REALLY tired of this nonsense, and I'm at my end. Having to drop into console and sudo gedit everything all the time just to save it is 10000 times more annoying than Vista UAC, and that's bad. I want to do something that should be dirt simple (change workgroup name from Workgroup to my name so that my Ubuntu PC will show up with my Windows PC's on the college network) but I have to gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf and have root permissions and everything. Talk about major overkill, but anyways, I'm tired of having to sudo into stuff.

I'm trying to edit the sudoers file to get rid of that annoying password, finally (after much long, tiresome searching) found out how to get it to use nano instead of that horrible vi editor (that thing is like someone ripped the keyboard in half, threw it in a blender, then rebuilt it with everything in the entirely wrong spot, it just doesn't work and I don't have the time to learn the cryptic weird commands it uses). What I really want is every Nautilus window I open to have root permissions (always get stuck trying to write outside of /home, end up with an annoying read only message, end up having to go to terminal, sudo nautilus, waste more time loading another stupid window, re-navigate to where I need to be, it's just not practical to waste time plugging around in terminal to open root versions of programs I could open through menus).

So...what I want to do...just make my "Adam" user account have total 100% pure root permissions. I know it isn't advised, but I'm the only one using this PC, I know that typing in anything you read online isn't advised, and I don't want to have to sudo everything I do just because some stupid security block is on the system. The sharing folder thing is incredibly annoying, in Windows I'm used to just right clicking, Share, poof, it's done, in Linux they try to do that but fail, because it returns errors about lack of permissions all the time.


EDIT:
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After long hours of smashing keys in anger, hacking around in terminal, using the root account, messing up my PC entirely, recovering it via recovery mode, going back into root account, playing around with the users tool, and still getting absolutely nowhere, I decided what I need is two users with the same UID. Apparently the magic behind the root account is that it has a UID of 0 and GID of 0. In order for a "second root" user to work, you'd need to have it be 0/0 as well. I've read that you can have more than one account using the same UID, but adduser and the Users panel both seem to disagree. How do you either make another user that also has UID of 0 OR change a user's UID after they've been created?

EDIT 2:
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I ended up making a new account ("adam") with the default UID of 1000. That allowed the user to be created with the proper home directory (/home/adam). Then I (using root user account) opened terminal and edited /etc/passwd, found the line adam:1000:0:...whatever and changed the 1000 to 0. Now I can successfully login via the "adam" account and password and it has root permissions and everything, but in terminal it still shows up as "root@Adam-ThinkPad". Also, I get some annoying messages upon login (home dmrc being ignored or something like that, I've had the same message before when using FTP out of my home directory, the hard coded security annoyances are really ANNOYING at this point, as much as I detest User Account Control, it at least has an OFF BUTTON...gah!). Getting closer, if I figure it out I'll post a guide for those who want to take back control of their PC.

 

[Jayce]

So to cut back on the time it takes to type in your password, you'd rather log out, log into another account, and simply avoid having to type that password?

Quite frankly, I like the fact that I have to type in sudo and type in my password. It allows me to feel confident that when I let other users use my computer (which I am typically anal about) that it will be secure and they won't go off deleting anything or installing any BS I don't want. I don't know how many times I let a buddy use a laptop when he was over only to find other garbage freshly downloaded.

Just saying, I can understand why it can be a very minor annoyance, but a full blown problem? Not seeing it...

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

When you only have to say, enter your password as sudo once, and your entire session you'll never have to A) type it again, B) type it into a gksudo prompt, C) have a read only error due to permissions wouldn't be too bad...but I already enter my password to log in, so having to enter it again (by default your user login password is the same as your root password, but you aren't given root permissions) is just annoying. I never let anyone else use my computer anyways, this is my old laptop that just sits on my desk unused most of the time and I just wanted to see how hard it was to get past all the blocks in place and make a root account. I probably won't do this to my main laptop, due to said reasons if I let others use my laptop, though they'd be under my watch, I don't leave my laptop with anyone.

Everyone says root is a lot different from having Administrator in Windows...but why is it different, both have full filesystem read/write access, access to user properties, ability to change system settings, etc. The reason they don't want average people having root is they'll type any random command their friends e-mail them and end up deleting their partition.

 

[Jayce]

This argument can just involve so many variables.

"Why do I have to type apt-get install?"
"Why can't I just type install?"


...etc etc.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

The main issue is how nautilus (and any time you want to save stuff) is always run in limited mode by default. Typing passwords is a pain, but having to use terminal to open a GUI program that otherwise could be opened via a GUI menu is just plain ridiculous. I don't know why anyone would want most of their computer locked out from their use. I'm trying to get my Ubuntu to have the same user-friendliness as Windows (...ok, so I want to copy some files [say, screensavers] to Windows/system32 from my My Documents folder, would you like having to go Start->cmd->explorer.exe C:/Windows/system32 -admin <passowrd>? No. Same thing applies in other OS'es). For most users I guess it isn't necessary, but I tend to find myself trying to configure the system almost every time I use it, so I get tired of typing my password over and over again...It's kinda like how everyone hated UAC when it was implemented in Vista, it just gets annoying after a while.

 

[Jayce]

UAC was obnoxious and stupidly implemented. You're given a choice, continue or cancel. There's no security there, it's just a nag.

The sudo password has security backing it due to the fact it requires the password. Not only that, but in my experience with Ubuntu, say I want to run several commands at once. The first one requires the password. In a timely manner, if I throw in additional commands right after, they don't require that password because the original instance from before when I entered the password still applies. I guess you could refer to this as... user friendly...

But, on topic, that's security. UAC is just a nuisance. I don't mean to be unproductive in this thread, but I am just not seeing the connection between comparing UAC and Sudo. It's just not there.

But, on a slightly more positively motivated note, I'm glad you figured out a way to make things work the way you wanted. And have you ever looked at Fedora? They have their own root account built in, and Core 10 comes out in a month or something like that.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I've looked at Fedora before but found it entirely unintuitive and the package manager was nothing compared to Synaptic. I'd rather hack a root user together in Ubuntu than mess with Fedora again. I also like how Ubuntu automatically installs restricted drivers, Fedora I couldn't even find an option to install fglrx for my Radeon card let alone get it working.

 

[Jayce]

I've looked at Fedora before but found it entirely unintuitive and the package manager was nothing compared to Synaptic. I'd rather hack a root user together in Ubuntu than mess with Fedora again. I also like how Ubuntu automatically installs restricted drivers, Fedora I couldn't even find an option to install fglrx for my Radeon card let alone get it working.

And yet, for some strange reason, my cousin swears that Fedora is worlds better than Ubuntu. I just can't see his logic. Glad to see someone else out there was seeing the exact same things I was!

 

[KSoD]

I dont want to go off topic but i have to say this.

UAC was implemented to help slow down and try to help prevent infections and malicious software from auto installing on Windows. While it can be annoying at first once you get workign with it the prompts come less and less. After the first day and getting all my software installed i have yet to see UAC pop up.

I will also say that UAC has been adjusted to work more efficently in Win7. I have had it only come up once. To install Firefox of all things. To get by it i just right clicked and Run as Admin and no UAC.

So yes annoying at first. But ultra effective to prevent drive by installs. Just check around and you will see that Vista machines with UAC on have a much lower virus infection rate than Vista without UAC or XP. So it does serve a purpose.
Sorry but had to add that.

 

[Jayce]

I understand the UAC was created for positive reasons, but it really still dwindles down to having common sense when using computers that would provide the security you need. I even turned off the UAC in Vista and yet the sucker still comes up in Home Premium on my laptop, and I have no idea why.

I understand it's purpose. But it says something when Microsoft sits back and thinks "Oh, wow... we kinda goofed there..." considering the fact they admitted they needed to do more basic-user testing on their OS's.