Just installed Ubuntu, am hating it, my gripes and how do I fix them - Hardware & Software

So after finally figuring out how to get my goddamn wireless card working, I am having these issues: -I can't seem to change the directory shown in the file viewer (like how in Windows you can go change 'C:\[user]\documents' to 'C:\program files (x86)' and press enter and there you are). -When my screensaver popups, I need to retype my password after I end it -I need to retype my password for everything (I thought UAC, good thing I disable UAC) -I can't figure out how to remove my password (like not have a password at all, no one else uses my computers, which are in my house). I am just testing Ubuntu for the shits and giggles btw.

[QUOTE=The Baconator;30055091]I can't seem to change the directory shown in the file viewer (like how in Windows you can go change 'C:\[user]\documents' to 'C:\program files (x86)' and press enter and there you are).[/QUOTE] The "location bar" in the file browser normally shows a row of buttons, but if you press Ctrl-L it changes to a text box so you can type a path. [QUOTE=The Baconator;30055091]When my screensaver popups, I need to retype my password after I end it[/QUOTE] In the screensaver preferences window, there should be a checkbox labeled "lock screen when screensaver is active". Turn that off. [QUOTE=The Baconator;30055091]I need to retype my password for everything (I thought UAC, good thing I disable UAC)[/QUOTE] You have to type your password for administrative actions, so that malicious programs can't make system-level changes without your knowledge. Linux and Mac OS have required passwords for admin stuff for years. The fact that Windows [i]didn't[/i] is a major factor in the sorry state of Windows security and the spread of malware. Microsoft introduced UAC for good reason. [QUOTE=The Baconator;30055091]I can't figure out how to remove my password (like not have a password at all, no one else uses my computers, which are in my house).[/QUOTE] Hmm, looks like you can't set your password to blank using the GNOME "Users and Groups" tool. "sudo passwd -d <[i]username[/i]>" in a terminal window should work, though. If you really want to turn off all security on your computer, that is.

Thanks for the above answers. [QUOTE=Wyzard;30055575]Linux and Mac OS have required passwords for admin stuff for years. The fact that Windows [i]didn't[/i] is a major factor in the sorry state of Windows security and the spread of malware. [b]Microsoft introduced UAC for good reason.[/b][/QUOTE] True but you can turn it off easily. Not so much here. Besides you sorta have to try to get viruses in order to get them. Web of Trust, Noscript, router, takes care of all my security needs.

I know how to make sudo work without asking you for a password, but that's through the command line. I think there might be a graphical way of doing it. I still think it's not a good idea to do such a thing. In Linux it's extremely easy to run something that will wreck your system. It takes only one command to erase all files from all mounted partition or to completely overwrite the first disk. These of course require root access which will require your password. If your password is blank or if sudo doesn't ask for your password there's no prompt that will announce to you that you are doing some administrative task.

[QUOTE=Boris-B;30055935]I know how to make sudo work without asking you for a password, but that's through the command line. I think there might be a graphical way of doing it. I still think it's not a good idea to do such a thing. In Linux it's extremely easy to run something that will wreck your system. It takes only one command to erase all files from all mounted partition or to completely overwrite the first disk. These of course require root access which will require your password. If your password is blank or if sudo doesn't ask for your password there's no prompt that will announce to you that you are doing some administrative task.[/QUOTE] Not a problem, I only am testing linux for the use on my parent's PC, and they barely use it, let alone watch porn or torrent, so viruses won't be an issue. I just don't want to deal with windows on their PC's. But the whole password every 2 seconds (and password to do anything quite frankly) will piss them off, and me included. I just don't find the benefits outweighing the cons.

[QUOTE=The Baconator;30055684]True but you can turn it off easily.[/QUOTE] My point was that you shouldn't anyway. The always-admin thing is a historical misfeature of Windows that Microsoft fixed in Vista, not a positive feature that you should strive for on other platforms. [QUOTE=The Baconator;30055981]But the whole password every 2 seconds (and password to do anything quite frankly) will piss them off, and me included.[/QUOTE] What are you doing that asks for passwords constantly? First of all, once you authenticate, it's cached for a few minutes (IIRC) so that you can do more admin stuff without needing to enter your password again. Second, it's [i]only[/i] needed for administrative tasks. You don't need to type your password to browse the web, or edit a document, or play music. In normal day-to-day usage, typically the only thing you need it for is installing updates.

[QUOTE=The Baconator;30055981]Not a problem, I only am testing linux for the use on my parent's PC, and they barely use it, let alone watch porn or torrent, so viruses won't be an issue. I just don't want to deal with windows on their PC's. But the whole password every 2 seconds (and password to do anything quite frankly) will piss them off, and me included. I just don't find the benefits outweighing the cons.[/QUOTE] You really don't have to use the password for anything but logging in and making changes that could theoretically be unsafe. If all you do is browse the web and look at emails, you won't be putting your password in more than once.

How reliable is Wine btw?

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it works like shit. It all depends on the application. There's a good database of all apps that work and how to make them work. Even then, it's highly dependent on the wine version which is pretty outdated in ubuntu. [url]http://appdb.winehq.org/[/url] For most apps it works usually pretty OK, but for games it ranges from horrible to marvelous.

I wouldn't use linux for gaming but it is possible.

[QUOTE=The Baconator;30064189]How reliable is Wine btw?[/QUOTE] Depends on your calendar sign and the sign the moon was in the day you were born. Apparently Wine really fucking hates Leo-Cancers because I can't get it to work for jack shit.

Well this one guy at my school brags how he doesn't need Windows installed anymore thanks to Wine (he plays TF2).

If you like you can make it so that you are not prompted for a password when turning on the computer. I believe this is in Administration menu > Users and Groups. However you will still be prompted for a password to do administrative stuff, and that's good.

[QUOTE=The Baconator;30073691]Well this one guy at my school brags how he doesn't need Windows installed anymore thanks to Wine (he plays TF2).[/QUOTE] Steam does work on Wine, although not every game works perfectly. However, you really don't seem like the type to use Linux. Linux isn't something to be used for shits and giggles, it's for a more stable, interactive, logical OS. If you're just going to be gaming, you might as well stick to Windows.

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;30085720]If you like you can make it so that you are not prompted for a password when turning on the computer. I believe this is in Administration menu > Users and Groups. However you will still be prompted for a password to do administrative stuff, and that's good.[/QUOTE] I've never really understood sudo that much. Surely you are going to fuck up something anyway if you ran the command through sudo, because it's basically like being in root? Let me know If I'm wrong though.

It's not to protect you from breaking things with sudo, it's to protect you from breaking things with ordinary commands, where you don't use sudo because you don't intend to make administrative changes. Running a command with sudo is a conscious decision that (hopefully) reminds you to be careful.

[QUOTE=Wyzard;30100514]It's not to protect you from breaking things with sudo, it's to protect you from breaking things with ordinary commands, where you don't use sudo because you don't intend to make administrative changes. Running a command with sudo is a conscious decision that (hopefully) reminds you to be careful.[/QUOTE] Running sudo the first time does give you warnings too, right? Like #1) Respect the privacy of others. #2) Think before you type. #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

Well, the original purpose of sudo was for an administrator (e.g. root) to allow specific users to run specific commands as root, without having to give out the root password. That's why sudo gives you those warnings. This comes from Linux's Unix-inspired history as a multi-user system, where there may be lots of people logging into the same computer, and most of them should not have administrative privileges. Ubuntu "repurposed" sudo into something that even the administrator is supposed to use. Back in 2004 when Ubuntu was first released, Windows had no UAC, and the Ubuntu engineers were concerned that users coming from Windows would simply log in as root to bypass all the security stuff and get a fully-privileged desktop environment like they were accustomed to in Windows XP. Logging in as root means that your whole desktop session runs as root, which is a bad idea security-wise, so Ubuntu disabled root logins and put forth sudo as the way to run root commands. (The traditional way to use root is to log in with your own account, then use the "su" command, which prompts for the root password and then gives you a root shell. In Ubuntu, root's password is disabled, so that doesn't work; hence sudo. If you prefer, you can do "sudo passwd root" to set a password, then use "su" in the traditional way. But don't log in as root!)

i really prefer su because i use apt-get to get my packages on every debian based distro and it's a pain in the ass to keep typing SUDO SUDO SUDO SUDO

So do I. I don't use Ubuntu much (I use Debian), but on Ubuntu systems I usually set a root password so that I can use su. BTW, the graphical password prompting (which is analogous to sudo) is provided by something called PolicyKit. It's used to configure privilege requirements for various actions -- allow to everyone, allow to local but non-remote users, allow to admin users with password, allow to admin users without password, etc. Most administrative actions are configured to require a password by default, but for example, mounting and unmounting removable drives is typically configured to be allowed for any local user. That's why you can unmount your flash drive without a password when you're sitting in front of the computer, but not (without using root privileges) if you're logged in remotely via SSH.

[QUOTE=Wyzard;30105393](The traditional way to use root is to log in with your own account, then use the "su" command, which prompts for the root password and then gives you a root shell. In Ubuntu, root's password is disabled, so that doesn't work; hence sudo. If you prefer, you can do "sudo passwd root" to set a password, then use "su" in the traditional way. But don't log in as root!)[/QUOTE] You can also "sudo su" to switch user to root using your sudo password, without setting a root password.

You don't need to define the user (sudo passwd root) when running passwd, because the program is run as root (sudo), and just typing passwd defaults to changing the password of the user you're running passwd as (root).

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;30105878]You can also "sudo su" to switch user to root using your sudo password, without setting a root password.[/QUOTE] "sudo -i" is preferable, or "sudo bash" if you don't want it to act like a login shell. "sudo su" is redundant — using root to run a program whose only purpose is to ask for a password when it's [i]not[/i] run as root. [QUOTE=nikomo;30105983]You don't need to define the user (sudo passwd root) when running passwd, because the program is run as root (sudo)[/QUOTE] Good point.

[QUOTE=wlzshroom;30105441]i really prefer su because i use apt-get to get my packages on every debian based distro and it's a pain in the ass to keep typing SUDO SUDO SUDO SUDO[/QUOTE] When I'm only doing one thing as root I'll use sudo, but if I'm doing a bunch of other things I'll have a root shell to the side (using "su -" usually)

What exactly prompts these password requests? I'm not a huge fan of Ubuntu, quite the opposite in fact, but in the few months I tried it, I didn't notice any extra password requests compared to other distros. If you're just installing small apps, you can try installing to your home folder. This practice is useful if you need software on a machine where you don't have privileges (e.g: school computers). On the school computers I have DWM, thunar and some other stuff, because I hate the default KDE and konqueror stuff that they have on them. It's all installed inside my home folder at ~/bin/

I'm tired of people telling other people how they should run their computer and saying "ROOT LOGIN IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!" If the person is asking how to login as root, they [I]probably[/I] know what they're doing and are irritated with having to type their password in every 5 minutes. In Fedora (and other RH like distros and possibly others) if you want to enable logging in as root within the desktop environment (Gnome, KDE, etc.) all you have to do is open a console with root privileges and navigate to /etc/pam.d Then depending on your version of Linux, you'll have to use nano to modify several files (usually two, sometimes more.) The first file is gdm (type "nano gdm" to open it) then find the line where it says: auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet And put a # in front of it so it looks like: #auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet Then save and close it. The next file is gdm-password, and it has the same line that needs to be commented out. Save both files and close them and logout of your current user, and you should be able to login as root now. The only problem with logging in as root under the DE is some applications are hard coded to refuse to work while running under root (VLC for example) and have to be recompiled with several allow-root flags for it to work. Luckily you can sudo run it under a different user within the root session.

[QUOTE=bohb;30167231]If the person is asking how to login as root, they [I]probably[/I] know what they're doing and are irritated with having to type their password in every 5 minutes.[/QUOTE] There are millions of security-clueless Windows users who are accustomed to being root all the time, not because they "know what they're doing", but just because that's how consumer versions of Windows used to work. Those are the people who Ubuntu's security decisions are intended to cope with. Anyway, the OP didn't ask how to log in as root, he asked how to get rid of the password prompts. That can be done with PolicyKit configuration, which means any program can get root if it asks, but it still [i]only[/i] gets root if it asks. Much better than just running all the (un-audited) GUI desktop apps as root whether they need it or not, which is what happens if you log in as root.

The problem with Policykit is that it's a pain in the ass to modify all of those configurations, and they don't always work properly. It also doesn't help if you want to modify root files (which many configurations are owned by.) It's easier to change two lines and login as root than deal with umpteen configurations or have to change umpteen files ownership in umpteen directories that wastes hours of time. I've [I]always[/I] used the root account as the main user account on every Linux install I've ever put into service and had zero problems and zero security breaches in 10 years of using Linux. If the average user has a good firewall and doesn't do something dumb like rm -rf /, they'll be fine using the root login.

[QUOTE=lavacano;30070070]Depends on your calendar sign and the sign the moon was in the day you were born. Apparently Wine really fucking hates Leo-Cancers because I can't get it to work for jack shit.[/QUOTE]The planets also have to be aligned correctly, and at the same time, Kanye West has to be reflecting on how much of a douche he is.

[QUOTE=wlzshroom;30105441]i really prefer su because i use apt-get to get my packages on every debian based distro and it's a pain in the ass to keep typing SUDO SUDO SUDO SUDO[/QUOTE] That's why you chain the packages like this: [code] sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-pear mongodb [/code]