Re: new to list, new to debian, new to linux

[Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>]

Hi,

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 03:03:23AM -0500, dwain wrote:
> hello all.  i just installed debian tonight next to win xp.  they seem to
> play well together.  i was trying to setup the bug report and found that i
> can't sudo into root.  i can get into the synaptic package manager with the
> root password and this has me a bit confused why i can't login as root in
> the terminal with sudo.  is there another command that i can try to do this?

Ubuntu sets up sudo while setting no password for root in its default as
I observe.  You sounds like one from Ubuntu or some other Debian derivatives.

> also i would like to update my system.  would i: apt-get update and then:
> apt-get install to do this?
> 
> any help would be appreciated, but please keep your responses simple as i am
> trying to learn a new os and am in the process of migrating away from
> windows.

I do not think you get bigger picture without reading documentation
given in the system.

For started, you amy wish to read documentation in 
 http://www.debian.org
 http://www.debian.org/doc

"Debian Reference" web pages on Debian need update soonish.  For now
please look at:
 http://people.debian.org/~osamu/pub/po4a/html/index.en.html

* Debian is not Ubuntu.  So you need to set up sudo by yourself.
  http://people.debian.org/~osamu/pub/po4a/html/ch01.en.html#_sudo_configuration
  (If you are the only one, no security issue.)

* There are multiple ways to get root.  (Including one without password)
  http://people.debian.org/~osamu/pub/po4a/html/ch04.en.html#_securing_the_root_password

Good luck.

Osamu