How to set Ubuntu Mate account types

Question

I've installed tightvncserver together with ubuntu-mate desktop on a headless server. Everything works perfect now, but i can't really change user permission inside of ubuntu-mate. Normally i could go to the user manager and set the account type to administrator, custom or a desktop user etc. But i'm not allowed to change this. Not even when i login as root, which i know is not secure. I read it has something to do with a bug in the user manager, that's not going to be repared. But still i need to give users desktop account types, to disallow them to change settings etc.

How do i give myself admin privileges and other users some basic permissions for using the remote desktop for what they need to use it for? Because i really need some more control inside of ubuntu-mate desktop to do this.

I did try to use the console and at my linux users to sudo, using:

sudo usermod -ag sudo username

But there is no change inside ubuntu user manager and all users have custom account type by default... So no success. Any other commands i could use? Any hints or tips are welcome.

Answer 1

I posted the same question on the freenode #ubuntu channel, and discovered the the user manager does not work because of some kind of policy problem. It prevented the user manager to work correctly. After installing x2goserver along with tightvncserver solved the issue. The x2goserver follows the right policy, so the user manager works with it, and not with tightvncserver.

Answer 2

In order to get the GUI in the picture you should execute users-admin

If you don't have the link in the GUI for that application, you can navigate to applications -> System Tools -> Mate Terminal and get into the terminal.

Now you can execute users-admin from the Terminal and you'll get this GUI

If users-admin isn't installed on your machine, running the following command will install it:

sudo apt install gnome-system-tools