how do I change permissions?

Question

On my new install of Ubuntu 12.10, I keep having to enter passwords for EVERYTHING! I am the only user on this computer, and I am tired of having to enter all these passwords, can anyone help?

Answer 1

Your computer is set up with at least 2 accounts. If you are a single user you have 2 roles: user and administrator. The last one requires a sudo password every time you do an admin task. That is the way Ubuntu works and is part of the security model Ubuntu follows.

You can circumvent sudo with

sudo visudo

If you add a line like

%Arathorn867 ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/k3b

user Arathorn867 can use program k3b without it asking a sudo password.

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If you want to remove this security model you can alsofollow this guide:

http://my.opera.com/Viperstryker/blog/how-to-disable-sudo-password-prompts-on-ubuntu

But we AskUbuntu all (well at least alot of us) advice AGAINST it. Just get used to this method.

Answer 2

It is all a security issue. If you want root to be available to anyone that might hack into your computer... by all means take away sudo. Think about it a while and then you might want to ask why Windows gets broken into so easily, they have done as you are asking.