Logging in as root on 21.10

[kubicle]

For me, it's a bit of both. su -, once issued in a terminal, lets me come back to it throughout the day without having to re-validate over and over again. With sudo you're limited (by time? by number of actions? I don't know--I haven't used it enough to know its finer points). But, yes, it's also what I'm used to. And like.

Yes, but that's what I've been trying to say. The command "sudo -i" (just "sudo -i") will give you a persistent root shell (just like "su -"). I use it regularly when I need to run multiple commands as root, you can try it if you don't believe me (and yes, it also works with the root account locked).

And the sudo password timeout is fully configurable and can be removed completely (default 15mins) if one prefers individual sudo commands rather than a root terminal with "sudo -i". Not directed at your use case, but as an example of the high configurability that is one of the strong points of sudo.

I kind of disagree. Sure, a really determined person who's bent on screwing up their computer can do it with sudo, but I see a much greater likelihood of doing that when you're actually logged in as root. One typo, one errant command, one itsy-bitsy mistake can be catastrophic. And when you're logged in as root, it's easy to lose track of that fact! Like you get busy doing other stuff and really don't think about it. With sudo, you have to continually type its command and enter your password....this is a reminder that you're doing something serious.

We're talking about different things here. I didn't mean people that are logged in as root all the time (these people can [and will] easily google how to unlock the root account [it's literally one simple command away] to shoot themselves in the foot)...I mean somewhat regular users who can do just as much damage with "sudo -i" as with "su -".

When I started using *buntu, I was actually shocked that logging in as root was disabled by default. I'd never seen or heard of any *nix doing that--and I definitely didn't like it. My *nix route looks something like this: Tandy Xenix, SCO, Coherent, [several different Linux distros, including Red Hat], Kubuntu. I'm not aware of any of those disabling root logins other than [K]Ubuntu; if they did, I didn't know about it!

Ubuntu 'disabling root login' by default is strictly a *buntu thing. Doing it goes against industry 'established norms' that nearly every other distribution of Linux adheres to -- I believe.

Ubuntu was the first Linux distro to use sudo exclusively by default (though MacOs, a BSD derivative did it before that), but nowadays it's not the only one. Debian does it too, for example, if you don't specifically set up a root password on installation. "Industry standards" are a fluid thing, they change over time (there is a dscussion there whether there are "industry standards" at all in the variety of *NIX operating systems, aside from POSIX, and LSB and FHS for linux, anyway...and even these are not universally adhered to).

Thanks. It also reinforces my thinking about their thinking regarding windows users, since Ubuntu is the #1 Linux distro and has the most windows converts. It makes sense that they'd proactively do something to limit potential damage done by windows 'experts' who think they're in control--despite the OSes being like apples and oranges!

Beware of confirmation bias here. But if you are dead set on "this is why they must have done it", my hands are tied. Locking the root account does very little to protect users from themselves (and is easily circumvented), it does however offer some protection against outside attacks for users who install and run outward facing services on their computers without knowing how to set them up securely (and this can sometimes bite even experienced users).

[jglen490]

I use sudo any time I need to run with elevated permissions. On rare occasions I'll use sudo -i, followed by exit in a konsole. But. sudo is a great tool for elevated permissions, and I never have a need to run as the root user.

Even though I boot to a GUI environment, konsole is always opened along by default with few GUI apps.