19 Dec 2011, 8:10 pm
nat4200 wrote:
This might be a dumb question sorry, but were you using "sudo" or "gksu" to run gui programs with root?
No, I was trying to use sudo to run get-apt in the Terminal.
Orwell wrote:
Debian, hands down. Rock-solid stable, and easily the most stringent quality control standards of any Linux distro. Also a more comprehensive feature list than you will find anywhere else.
Sounds good to me
Quote:
Difficult how? It's much easier to set up and run than Windows. Ubuntu or Mint might be simpler for someone who has no idea what they're doing, but any reasonable computer-literate person should be able to handle Debian.
Installing it was as easy as Ubuntu, but when I first tried to check for updates, I tried to run "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade", as the Debian documentation told me to, but I was apparently not on the sudoers file, so I went to manually edit the sudoers file but was unable to do so, both under my regular account and under an admin account, and I can't get into root using the GUI. Then I did more research and used the su- method, which worked fine. I don't see why I can use su- but not sudo, that makes no logical sense to me whatsoever
I think the headache I got from doing all that just to essentially check for updates got it into my head that it's a bit of a difficult system to work with.
lxuser wrote:
Also what is so scary about the command line? The text editor part is the same its just that is launched in a terminal, I recommend using nano because its easy to use for newcomers.
I have nothing against the command line, it's just that I need to do more learning before I can use it properly is all
19 Dec 2011, 9:20 pm
19 Dec 2011, 10:27 pm
Asp-Z wrote:
Installing it was as easy as Ubuntu, but when I first tried to check for updates, I tried to run "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade", as the Debian documentation told me to, but I was apparently not on the sudoers file, so I went to manually edit the sudoers file but was unable to do so, both under my regular account and under an admin account, and I can't get into root using the GUI. Then I did more research and used the su- method, which worked fine. I don't see why I can use su- but not sudo, that makes no logical sense to me whatsoever
I think the headache I got from doing all that just to essentially check for updates got it into my head that it's a bit of a difficult system to work with.
I think the headache I got from doing all that just to essentially check for updates got it into my head that it's a bit of a difficult system to work with.
That's just a somewhat different way of doing things. Ubuntu (+derivatives) is really the only distro that uses sudo by default. Debian, Fedora, Arch etc all have sudo, but it is not configured by default. In Ubuntu, you cannot type 'su' to become root as you would in any other distro- you must use 'sudo su' and this got people who started on other distros all confused, as you were when trying to use sudo on Debian.
You can set up sudo (go to a terminal and type 'man visudo') or you can just become root whenever you need root privileges (which is what I do, because I'm too lazy to set up sudo).
20 Dec 2011, 8:07 am
Orwell wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
Installing it was as easy as Ubuntu, but when I first tried to check for updates, I tried to run "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade", as the Debian documentation told me to, but I was apparently not on the sudoers file, so I went to manually edit the sudoers file but was unable to do so, both under my regular account and under an admin account, and I can't get into root using the GUI. Then I did more research and used the su- method, which worked fine. I don't see why I can use su- but not sudo, that makes no logical sense to me whatsoever
I think the headache I got from doing all that just to essentially check for updates got it into my head that it's a bit of a difficult system to work with.
I think the headache I got from doing all that just to essentially check for updates got it into my head that it's a bit of a difficult system to work with.
That's just a somewhat different way of doing things. Ubuntu (+derivatives) is really the only distro that uses sudo by default. Debian, Fedora, Arch etc all have sudo, but it is not configured by default. In Ubuntu, you cannot type 'su' to become root as you would in any other distro- you must use 'sudo su' and this got people who started on other distros all confused, as you were when trying to use sudo on Debian.
You can set up sudo (go to a terminal and type 'man visudo') or you can just become root whenever you need root privileges (which is what I do, because I'm too lazy to set up sudo).
Ahh, see I didn't know that, because I'm used to using sudo in OS X as well.
22 Dec 2011, 5:45 pm
nat4200 wrote:
This might be a dumb question sorry, but were you using "sudo" or "gksu" to run gui programs with root?
gksu is the su frontend for GTK+ applications there is also gksudo which is the frontend for sudo. The KDE equivalent is kdesu and Kubuntu has kdesudo as the frontend for sudo.Asp-Z wrote:
lxuser wrote:
Also what is so scary about the command line? The text editor part is the same its just that is launched in a terminal, I recommend using nano because its easy to use for newcomers.
I have nothing against the command line, it's just that I need to do more learning before I can use it properly is all
22 Dec 2011, 9:12 pm
22 Dec 2011, 9:13 pm
Orwell wrote:
Oh, also: if you leave the root password blank as you go through the Debian installer, it will disable the root account and use sudo instead, that is it will adopt the same behavior as Ubuntu.
Would it be more secure to have root disabled, do you think?
lxuser, thanks for the advice
22 Dec 2011, 9:17 pm
22 Dec 2011, 9:18 pm
22 Dec 2011, 9:30 pm
Asp-Z wrote:
Orwell wrote:
Oh, also: if you leave the root password blank as you go through the Debian installer, it will disable the root account and use sudo instead, that is it will adopt the same behavior as Ubuntu.
Would it be more secure to have root disabled, do you think?
lxuser, thanks for the advice
The first thing I do, after a new install of a sudo'ophilic distro is (roughly speaking):
Code:
sudo passwd root
22 Dec 2011, 10:23 pm
AngelKnight
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22 Dec 2011, 10:32 pm
23 Dec 2011, 5:14 am
Asp-Z wrote:
Would it be more secure to have root disabled, do you think?
Like Orwell, I somehow doubt for everyday usage it make any real difference.Asp-Z wrote:
lxuser, thanks for the advice
You're welcome.
23 Dec 2011, 6:28 am
AngelKnight wrote:
@Asp-Z: So, how's Linux treating you? Any thoughts on getting experience with using it?
(background on why I'm asking: I'm curious about the experience for new Linux users these days; I started with Linux when it was a much, much different experience, so I have no real background on what it's like to start with it now.)
(background on why I'm asking: I'm curious about the experience for new Linux users these days; I started with Linux when it was a much, much different experience, so I have no real background on what it's like to start with it now.)
Not using it as my main OS yet, only on virtual machines. I opened this thread in case my next computer is PC and I need to use it then, so if that happens, I'll report back if you like
If you want to know what I think from playing about with the virtual machines a bit, well it's certainly different from both Windows and OS X, but it feels generally easy to use once you feel comfortable with Linux alternatives to apps and what everything does
Fogman
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23 Dec 2011, 1:05 pm
23 Dec 2011, 3:39 pm
