Handing over the responsibility

[Oceanwatcher]

After installing Kubuntu 9.04 on a friends laptop, it is time to give it back.

But first, I want to make sure that he has exactly the same rights as me so he never needs my password to do anything. In other words, I want him to be able to sudo etc., add users, do any administrative tasks I can do with my account today.

I would prefer to keep my account on the laptop for support, but I will not always be around to help, and he needs to learn to do some of the stuff himself.

Is there a way to set the preferred language for a user? As I see it, one of the other, little spoken of, advantages of Linux is the ability to have several languages installed. I love to be able to log on with English while the regular users uses Portugues or Norwegian.

When I install new software, will it automagically bring along the translations I need, or do I have to install them separately?

As you might understand, I am kinda making sure that the "wrapping" is as good as possible before handing it over. They have already seen a bit of the installation and like it a lot. Now it remains to see if they will like using it.

[dibl]

Re: Handing over the responsibility

I have set up Kubuntu for other people, but never for another language.

Alt-F2 "kuser" will bring up the user manager, in which your owner (with "sudo" priviledge) can add users. They need to be added to the non-default groups, in order play CDs, plug in USB devices, etc. -- it's been awhile since I did that so you might have to research the 9.04 defaults for added users.

KMenu>System Settings>Advanced>Login Manager would appear to offer the opportunity to set the login language for the session. I didn't pull the trigger and actually test it - it only offered me 3 varieties of English, so it may be that you need to install other language packs if you anticipate other languages than the ones that are presently installed. If you need alternative keyboard layouts for other languages, that is done in the "Regional and Language" module of System Settings.

[flarson]

Re: Handing over the responsibility

I have a little time this morning so I am going to tell you more than you want to know, Oceanwatcher. Sudo ability is granted in /etc/sudoers. If you look in there you will see a line at the end that grants root privileges to all users in the admin group. So add the new user to that group with
sudo adduser newuser admin
and they will have the same sudo ability that you do. Various devices, such as cdroms, audio devices and modems, are assigned group ownership to allow users to use them. You need to get his groups to match yours so that he has access to these devices. Then command "id" will show you the current groups of the current user, so you can login as your run id, copy it somewhere, login as the other user and add him to those groups, if he is not in them. The system may or may not add users to them by default.

You could also do "cat /etc/group" and you will get the masterlist of groups and who is in them, as this file controls that.

There is probably a GUI way to accomplish this, and it might even work.

For the language translations I have never used them, and had enough trouble just getting the iso-8859-1 characterset to work correctly, but if yourun
aptitude search i18
youwill see some things that will give you an idea where to start.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Handing over the responsibility

As usual in this forum - excellent information! And not even a bit too much I am an infoholic, so in my book there is no such thing as too much!

To actually look at/add/edit users and groups, you can use a very ok graphical interface or start it from the commandline as dibl mentioned.

K Menu>Applications>System>KUser

I already have the language added. Was just wondering what happens when you install a new app. Will get back here with more info if and when I find out. I guess I will just have to go there, set the PC up and let them start using it. And then go back a few times to adjust things. But I will try to make a note of what happens.

[dochawk]

Re: Handing over the responsibility


vigr
s/ceanwatcher/ceanwatcher,friendsname/


(or whatever the global replace is on your editor[1]. Include the colon so that it doesn't change the name of the group oceanwatcher).

and he's added to all the groups with rights that you are. admin is the biggie, but there's a couple of others under certain circumstances that escape me at the moment.

hawk

[1] real men use vi