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    #1

    I need to enable ROOT login

    I know it can be done, but I can't remember how to do it. I want to enable the use of a second monitor, but it gives me a ration of garbage about "YOU AIN"T ROOT SO'S I WONT SAVE YOUR NEW X11.CONF FILE for you." It's not just this, it the fight I have EVERY time I want to do ANYTHING that involves root permissions.

    I am an administer for Red Hat systems for a living. Never have I had an issue when root, which I use most of the day. Being able to run locally as root is exceptionally convienient, necessary for so many things, and poseses no security threat. I am tired of dealing with the hassle of a "feature" that protects NOTHING, makes many things difficult or impossible, and is just so "antiLinuxy". They even disable the su command in Kubuntu, which is even more stupid.

    But, I want to be able to use all of the neat GUI tools that don't use at work here (all command line there). I need to be able to just launch the NVIDIA console, or whatever, do what I need to do, and have it take without a hassle. Yea, I can probably chmod 666 the /etc/X11 directory, I can wiggle and jiggle around all of the individual problems as they come up, but I'm sick of that. I want to log in as ROOT, have the powers of God, and do what I need to and want to without silly restrictions.

    Anyone remember how to turn on root. permanently?

    And no, it is NOT a security issue. I'm behind my firewall and my data is securely backed up, and it takes 10 minutes to install the OS again if need be. You need to weigh what you are protecting against the chains you place on yourself and not having the power of a real root user and frankly, convienience wins. I need to be root, when I want, where I want, and if I'm so dumb I type in rm -rf /, then I deserve what I get.
    Tags: enable, login, root
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    #2
    See RootSudo.
    Windows no longer obstructs my view.
    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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      #3
      This does not directly answer your question but it is a usable workaround. If you click on the start button, and select edit applications, you can choose an application and select the "advanced" tab. There there is an entry named "run as a different user", you can type in root to start the application as root.
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        #4
        sudo -i
        sudo passwd root

        got it.

        Thank you.

        I love the warnings. If someone is sitting in front of my computer then they have already broken in to my house and the security of my computer is the least of my concern.

        Security depends on the context. If I were in the vault basement of the World Global Bank monitoring and controlling the gold transactions of the top ten major countries, I would use a different security model than if I am sitting naked in my bedroom on a computer that I surf for porn and fly flight simulators on.

        What is the point of KDE GUI applications that won't work unless you are root if you can't be root with a GUI. It's just a frustrating turn off. X11 is one of those things that is hard to do without a GUI.

        I will check out the advanced tab also. I thank you.
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          #5
          Any KDE GUI application can be launched 'as root' by typing kdesudo application_name. Do it from a console or from Krunner (Alt+F2).
          Windows no longer obstructs my view.
          Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
          "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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            #6
            Originally posted by MAHillsgrove View Post
            I love the warnings. If someone is sitting in front of my computer then they have already broken in to my house and the security of my computer is the least of my concern.
            That's not a reason why the root account is locked in ubuntu by default, it's a quite ineffective measure against local attackers.

            However, locked root account does offer some protection against:
            1. remote attackers...one less account to brute-force into (if you offer remote connections via password logins) for which the username is known.
            2. users themselves, and program bugs and flaws...as it discourages running everything as root, it is rather easy to destroy the system as root whether by thoughtless user interaction or a small flaw in a script.

            It's your machine, and you might not need/want such protection, but *buntus (or their defaults) are not tailored specifically to you.

            Additional note:
            To use the root account, you don't really need to enable the root password, you can use 'sudo -i' and 'sudo su' to get a root terminal (with the right kind of aliasing you can use them just as you would use 'su')...of course you can enable the root password as well, if you know what you are doing.
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              #7
              I also enabled the login via the GUI user manager and it still did not work.
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                #8
                Originally posted by MAHillsgrove View Post
                I also enabled the login via the GUI user manager and it still did not work.
                Can you elaborate a bit, what exactly were you trying to do and how it did not work?

                (Just in case you were trying to allow root GUI logins...to allow root logins via kdm, you can edit kdmrc...I won't post detailed instructions here, but I can send them to you via PM if you wish)

                What is the point of KDE GUI applications that won't work unless you are root if you can't be root with a GUI. It's just a frustrating turn off. X11 is one of those things that is hard to do without a GUI.
                You can run GUI applications as root just fine without unlocking the root account (or logging in as root), using kdesudo (like Snowhog mentioned), logging in as root to perform administrative tasks is much slower and much more inconvenient than performing the tasks from your normal user session...and running as root all the time is just asking for problems (again, your machine, you can do what you want with it...but your reasons for doing so seem a tad flawed, as in "I can't run GUI applications as root" while it's rather easy to do so.)
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                  #9
                  first you need to set the root password. To do that open the terminal and type the following command
                  Code:
                  sudo passwd
                  It will ask for password 2 times. enter it (duh.. )

                  now you need to edit a file in /etc/kde4/kdm called kdmrc. To do that type the following command in terminal..

                  Code:
                   sudo kate /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc
                  now browse for the line AllowRootLogin=false and change false to true. Save the file and close it.

                  Now you should be able to login as root in the GUI....
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