Stephen Allen wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote: > > You already have a root user account. All Unix-like machines will > > have a root user superuser account. That is uid 0 on the machine by > > definition. All you need to know is the password for it. > > Hm OK I understand this if one is doing a conventional *ix install, > but when installing using only a sudo account there is only one > password asked for, that is the user password. So I don't quite > understand how there could possibly be 2 passwords??
But all released versions of Debian always install both a root account and a normal user account. Hmm... You said you installed Wheezy Testing. How did you do this? The normal method of installing Testing/Unstable is to actually install Stable and then upgrade. That is probably what you should do in the future. Testing isn't done yet. If that is what you did then you have probably just tripped over one of the many issues that will need to be worked through before Testing can be released. If you jump on the daily builds for the debian-installer and then install Testing using the Testing installer then it is actually quite likely that you will find bugs in the installer. Those bits are undergoing development and won't be polished up until much later in the development cycle. Feel free to file bugs against the installer if you are participating in its testing. And if you are using it then you are participating in the testing whether you realized it or not. I recommend installing using the Stable installer, currently Squeeze, and then upgrade if you want to run Testing. That is a known reliable route. > > You say you have sudo access. If you have forgotten the root password > > then simply set a new one for it. > > Right but again only one password is asked for when setting up a new install > to use SUDOERS. If you install Debian Stable Squeeze you will be asked for a root account and then a normal user account. Debian doesn't install sudo by default. But I think it is a good practice to always install sudo and configure it and so I always do that when setting up a system and encourage it for others too. But if you are just using Synaptic from the GUI menu then you don't need sudo. It is still a good idea though. > I'm beginning to be more assured that this is a bug when doing an > install with an existing home partition. I don't see how that is related. Doesn't mean that it isn't. I just don't see how it could be related. I think you used one of the development installers from testing and didn't realize that it is still under active development and isn't really ready for the world to use yet. I mean you can use it, obviously, but it isn't polished up yet and there are undoubtedly bugs in the new process to be worked out before the next release. > The previous root password wouldn't have been stored encrypted on a > regular user's home partition would it. No I don't think so, that > wouldn't make much sense. No. Nothing like that is stored in your home directory. > > This is perhaps an opportune time for me to gently nudge that the > > command line really isn't that scary. Try it and you might like it. > > You can do anything you think you ned Synaptic for but probably faster > > and easier using APT commands directly from the command line. > > I use CLI mostly. I am after all using mutt ;) Only just recently > started using Synaptic and found out to my chagrin that I actually > like it. Oh no! You are going over to the dark side. That way leads to madness, even if they do have cookies. :-) Bob
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
