no SU after install

[Techboy_Miata]

hello i have a rather big problem. i just installed kubuntu today and have very quickly found out i have for some reason no use of the SU.
this is the error i get when ever a SU is required (after password has been given) "communication with su failed" i need to know what went wrong and how it can be fixed. without SU i cant reset the grub load order (XP should be default) i cant get into the package manager to DL firefox
please help


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edited by claydoh to remove the font-size tags

[Rog131]

Re: no SU after install

Use sudo or kdesu.
(To run the graphical configuration utilities use kdesu)

more:

Editing Files that Belong to Root
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/permissions

RootSudo
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

From sudo vs. su (http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000148)

Both the Knoppix and Ubuntu/Kubuntu distributions don't include the su command nor do the have root logins. The only way to get administrator privileges at the command-line level is to use sudo. With Knoppix running from a live CD there are no user logins so sudo happens with no questions asked.

With Kubuntu, it works a bit different. When you enter the sudo command for the first time, you will be prompted for a password. What password? Yours. That is, the password you normally use to log in. This is to prevent someone walking over to an unattended system from getting root access. In order to make it more convenient to do a series of commands as root, Kubuntu remembers that you have run as root recently and doesn't require the password. But, after a short idle period, you will be asked for it again.

More:
Unofficial Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) Linux Starter Guide
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper

-> How to set/change/enable root user password

[Techboy_Miata]

Re: no SU after install

noone may have been able to read my post. after i seen it myself lol
heres the original posting
" i just installed kubuntu today and have very quickly found out i have for some reason no use of the SU.
this is the error i get when ever a SU is required (after password has been given) "communication with su failed" i need to know what went wrong and how it can be fixed. without SU i cant reset the grub load order (XP should be default) i cant get into the package manager to DL firefox
please help"

[claydoh]

Re: no SU after install

As stated before, use the command 'sudo' instead of 'su', and the password is your user password. It is what *buntu uses in place of root. 'kdesu' is the terminal command used to run graphical apps with root privileges, which is what , for example, the Adept package manager is using to ask you for the password. Just use your user password to get to that.

[Techboy_Miata]

Re: no SU after install

no i dont think your reading me right. let me elaborate.
its not thtat i dont know how to use sudo, but rather i think sudo is broken on install. one of the first things i tried was to change logiin to auto at bootup through sys settings>user accounts. i click admin mode. i give it my password it then pops back with the error "communication with su failed" granted i havent ran a diagnostic with sudo on the CLI like sudo apt-get update but if sudo isnt working graphicly i dont see why it would work on the CL.

[claydoh]

Re: no SU after install

I have only seen similar problems to yours in different forums, but no remedy seems to have been found, nor any similar bugs reported, so my thoughts are that somehow your install is slightly corrupted, possibly a bad cd burn, or a corrupted image file. As yours is a fresh install, I (and I hate doing this) suggest trying to install it again, possily using a new cd-r burned at a slightly slower speed, even trying a new iso image download.

But first, try running a command in a terminal , such as 'sudo apt-get update' and 'kdesu kate' as there may be better error messages there as "communication with su failed" does not necessarily mean sudo is broken, just possibly what is trying to call sudo (kdesu) might be.

[Techboy_Miata]

Re: no SU after install

thnk you i came to the same thought this mornig. because without SU abilaties the OS is virtually about as usefull as a car with no transmission lol sadly i wish your comment about the bad burn was plausable. however these are factory made CDs i orderd the 23 and 64 nit ver.. ill run a complete diagnostic on sudo and get back to you later today.
thanks

[Techboy_Miata]

Re: no SU after install

hey claydoh thanks for thte info. im back in wondows world and gues what? windows is now my drfault boot again (hooray)
heres what happened. i ran a simple diagnostic sudo apt-get update (i beleivethis is = the back door to reloading the package manager list as to whats available) no problem
so then since i know firefox is in there i take the back door to install it
sudo apt-get install firefox. so thats been taken care of. basicly the back door of sudo works fine. i just cant do anything graphicly. i had to resort to editing the menu.lst with vi because gedit (command not found also with kedit) and trying blindly kate edit produced a huge error list lol
so would you still recomend a reinstall or is it possable to be repaired?

[lingenfr]

Re: no SU after install

no i dont think your reading me right. let me elaborate.
its not thtat i dont know how to use sudo, but rather i think sudo is broken on install. one of the first things i tried was to change logiin to auto at bootup through sys settings>user accounts. i click admin mode. i give it my password it then pops back with the error "communication with su failed" granted i havent ran a diagnostic with sudo on the CLI like sudo apt-get update but if sudo isnt working graphicly i dont see why it would work on the CL.

Funny, I tried to replicate what you did and I don't even have an option for admin mode when I go to System Settings>User Accounts. If you mean that kdesu doesn't work, so you are assuming that sudo won't work from the command line, I am not sure that is a good assumption. I would try it and see if there is an error message that is more helpful that the one you are getting. You might also run dmesg and look and see if there are any related errors showing up there.

[Techboy_Miata]

Re: no SU after install

this matter is now closed ubuntu KDE ver just pissed me the hell off i tried to repair as stated in another forum it was ether unsuccessfull or just made things worse so this ver of ubuntu gets a big fat FAIL!!!!!
i do like the blue color and layout of this ver but when you really get down to things that is not what matters. i am anticipating a last resort of rolling back to 5.10 but i hope that the normal ver of this distro will prove me wrong.
for the moment this is now a windows only machine
thank you all for your help on this matter

[claydoh]

Re: no SU after install

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with this install
But I would recommend if possible trying another install, and agin if possible, downloading your own image file and burning that, even trying out the 'alternative" but still easy text mode install disc. The fact that apt-get (definitely not the 'back-door" as that is the app Adept is actually using to do its thing) works makes me think there was something borked in KDE during the install, so I would definitely recommend another try at some point.

[handydan918]

Re: no SU after install

Hope one of the more knowledgeable types will weigh in on this, but here's my two cents.
If you want to use su, you have to set it up. Ububntu doesn't do this by default, which is one of it's little quirks that sort of torks me off.
To do this, type the following in a terminal window:
sudo passwd root
Enter your user password when prompted.
You will then be prompted to "enter new unix password" 2X.

this will allow su to work in a shell/terminal window.

If all yu need to do is edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, you could try:
sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

This, of course assumes competence with vi, which is cryptic at best.
you might try installing emacs as an editor, and:
sudo emacs /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Emacs is a little more intuitive and user-friendly for us noobs.

[Gezzer]

Re: no SU after install

open a konsole and try ...

open a konsole and write

sudo passwd root
enter your password

then re-enter this pass word
and enter it again

this makes the root password the same as your password

[claydoh]

Re: no SU after install

I think we are still rnot reading Techboy_Miata's post correctly

He was having problems with kdesu, sudo was working correctly. Plus I doubt that kdesu will work with root if it won't work with sudo

[Techboy_Miata]

Re: no SU after install

claydoh is correct not that this matters since linux has since been cut off from the bootloader (untill the arival of the new CD) but for anyone that may have a similar problem....
if i worked strictly from the command line there would be no problems from what i could see. in fact i did successfully reset the menu list so windows was the default boot before i reinstalled it for a 2nd time.
heres basicly the solution i tried and failed to follow. the solution involves adding the user name to the sudoers list cat /etc/sudoers
they say you must use sudovi (or is it visudo?) the problem was when i invoked visudo /etc/sudoers all it did was pop up a few add ons like -a or -v and so on like i didnt start the program correctly. what i was expecting was to see the list (or file) pop up in editable form. so i used the vi editor and overrode its intentions. this made things even worse (i may or may not have put my name in the correct place) and changed the error code to "su returned with an error"
btw when i did look at the list of sudoers my name was not listed in fact no name was listed. im by no means a CLI expert but i have picked up a few things along the way. i can CD i can even make a new make dir with "mkdir -v" for some reason the CL is very much part of the reason for Linuxs apeal (ubuntu just hapens to be my decided favorite but this can be applied to almost any distro or flavor) but no one interface should get 100% control.
(GUI/CLI) instead each should comliment each other with the right balance. praticly every distro and flavor ive tried does this. anyway im rambling on lol
it should be noted the ubuntu in general will not suffer any negitive ratings from me (unless the gnome ver i has a similar fate but i doubt it) just this paticular flavor. i decided to explore a bit with this new release from the norm and i got bit. for those of you who have or like/have had no problems with this KDE ver, good for you, im happy for you but its just not for me
as i look back on this one can compare it to a relationship with a girl. man it looks good on the outside but as soon as we tried to comunicate and start working together it fell apart lol