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This may sound stupid, but I wonder if there is any difference between normal and administrator user accounts (created with the Unity Control Center) except the right to use sudo to become root.

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  • What else does one need?
    – waltinator
    Nov 2, 2015 at 21:52
  • @waltinator I don't know, but I remember that when I once used XFCE, there was a long checklist with privileges that one could add or remove from an user account. Like described here: askubuntu.com/a/46049/367990
    – Byte Commander
    Nov 3, 2015 at 12:57
  • adding a userid to groups (lp,adm, etc) will influence programs that respect those groups. This will allow limited increases in a user account's power. root starts with ALL access enabled. They aren't "privileges". They're not even "capabilities". They're just /etc/group.
    – waltinator
    Nov 5, 2015 at 18:30

1 Answer 1

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The big difference is in the amount of groups user belongs to. In addition to sudo , admin account has access to the following

xieerqi:$ groups xieerqi
xieerqi : xieerqi adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

That's pretty much what that settings menu in xfce does - adds an account to groups

By contrast , a regular user belongs only to his/her own group, unless otherwise changed by admin/root accounts.

xieerqi:$ groups tester 
tester : tester

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