giving root access

[caveman_nige]

guys, am using ubuntu 9.04 JJ on my little lappy. problem is I cannot use my avg update as my logon i built it with does not have root access for some reason...

What do i need to do, its been a while since i loaded an ubuntu from scratch?

[Mjolinor]

Open a terminal and type


sudo passwd root


It will ask for your normal user passwd, once htis is entered it will ask for the new root password, twice.

You can then


su root


And it iwll ask for root's password.

[caveman_nige]

cheers bud,. tried that as advised.. changed the password etc.. but when i tried to get avg to update i got the error (see pic below)..

3254

[Mjolinor]

So it's not that straightforward. It is probably about how you installed it in the first place. It's probably best to remove it and reinstall making sure you install it where you have access as a normal user.

One has to wonder why bother at all under Ubuntu unless you transfer a lot of files into Windows.

[caveman_nige]

yeah the lans i access are all w2k3...

will try and remove it... and see if there any further options during install.. i thought it would not let me install it anyway unless i had root access

[caveman_nige]

just picked up the link you posted in the sb mate, will have a read of it later, thanks for your assistance so far. I will return post when i have an update etc. Seems there is not much support so far for the latest version of ubuntu, most plugins are useless right now,, i know this will change in time...

[Mjolinor]

I went and read about it and I don't think my conclusions have changed. It's a kind of conundrum. I and most people I know that use Linux, do it for several reasons viruses being one of them. Not I don't think, a very important one. I think the most important one is ease of use.

I suppose it's right to be concerned about carrying a virus to someone else's computer but if someone is running Windows and doesn't have their own protection then it's not really fair to blame the source. I really just don't know.

I do know that all my EEEs came with anti virus software and in all the time I had them I left it running and let it update and they never caught a thing.

I like to think that I know what my computer is doing and if there were anything at all running that shouldn't be then it would be obvious to me.

Anyway, as root

# adduser "your username" avg

should sort it out I think.

[caveman_nige]

linux by its very nature being opensource means that its not hard for people to write stuff to corrupt it or for some other purpose. because it is not widely used is no excuse and to put the onus on the windows system to conteract any bots/viruses/trojan etc a linux client may have. I for one will never take that risk and the onus of proof is on me to make sure my systems are secured before i attach to my clients networks etc...

However moving on, its seems that I installed a i586 client on this machine and not a i386. My mistake and it seems to causer me more issues that i thought it would.. video playbck does not happen no matter what codec is installed, this included live streaming video from websites like the bbc etc... Skype is not compatible with is version, VLC playback from my DM is not compatible. Opera is compatible with the i586 (no firefox is the my prefered browser).

So in conclusion it may may make life easier if i reload with the 9.94 i386 version which does not take long anyway and this a only a 4 day old load...

Oh well time to reload the bootable usb key and then reload this puppy and see how things go from there...

Update:
Reloaded and still the same issue, i guess i need to wait a little while for the apps to be released in versions that are compatible with this JJ kernel...

[liquidxd]

open avg from terminal with sudo in front of
(user@laptop:/$ sudo avg)

I think it works!!!

[kari]

You can easily and quickly run any program as root by preceeding the command with the “gksu” command. For instance, let’s launch xterm as root by hitting Alt+F2 to bring up the quick run dialog, then write "gksu xterm" and hit run, then password in next dialog.