Ubuntu Problem

[Hotwheelz]

I installed Ubuntu last night before I headed to bed and when I woke up this morning I discovered a problem. When I am sitting in the terminal and I type su it asks for the password like it should but when I enter the password, which is correct, it says authentication failure.

The weird part is when I am asked for a password anywhere else after wanting to change a system setting or something like that it takes the password. Why wont it accept the password after typing su but it will take it everywhere else?

[oz]

Try sudo instead. I think ubuntu is setup to use it by default.

[Entangledphoton]

That is true. Ubuntu is set up the same as macs. there is a systemwide password, but you cannot log in as root. They did this to make a more user-friendly/user-safe distro. If it really bugs you not being able to start a root session (sudo caches the password, so after the first command you type, you can sudo anything else just by prefacing he command with sudo) you can enable the root password, and thus the su command by typing-

sudo passwd root

and then entering your desired root password

[St. Joe]

When I am sitting in the terminal and I type su it asks for the password like it should but when I enter the password, which is correct, it says authentication failure.

Basically, you just replace 'su' with 'sudo' in the command.
Then for the password you enter your user pass.

This gives you admin privileges.

[pixellany]

I join the chorus of those that do not like Ubuntu's scheme. there should be user accounts and the root account. It should take effort to become root.

What is really annoying is to start something that needs root privileges, then enter the root password, and have it rejected. Ah, yes, it wants my USER passwd in order to let me do a "root" thing. Not good.....

[St. Joe]

I join the chorus of those that do not like Ubuntu's scheme. there should be user accounts and the root account.

There is a root account. It simply needs to be assigned a passwd.
As mentioned:

# sudo passwd root

As for preference that is another matter.
I like sudo and set it up on my Gentoo box.

[aysiu]

What is really annoying is to start something that needs root privileges, then enter the root password, and have it rejected. Ah, yes, it wants my USER passwd in order to let me do a "root" thing. Not good.....

But you don't have a "root" password in Ubuntu unless you enable it. There's only one password, which is fine (and it's exactly the way OS X does it, too). Why should one user have to remember two passwords? And in a multi-user environment, not every user is in the sudoer's file.

[TheFourthBeast]

type

sudo passwd <enter>

then enter your root password to enable the root account. I wouldn't exactly call that "effort".