Ubuntu 8.10 questions from a new user

[RalphTheCow]

There was an installation option to set up a user for automatic login but I can't find it post-installation. I figured for sure it would be in user administration, but I can't find it anywhere, not even in the documentation.

And speaking of documentation, where do you go for Ubuntu information? Their wiki looks to be sort of developer-oriented, and I just haven't gotten used to the forums yet - it's hard to beat good old Anandtech. The font seems to be so big that you just don't get much info on a page.

And I suppose I should just google up a good web page on Linux security. Should I at least put a password on root? I'm surprised they don't make you do that by default on installation.

Edit: Doh! Sorry - I'm getting my feet wet on their forums - here's my first answer.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showth...hlight=automatic+login

 

[Nothinman]

Root is passwordless because you can't login as root, you have to login as you and use sudo by default. It won't do any harm to put a password on it but it won't change much either.

 

[Warthog912]

You can set the automatic login post-install by Menu>System>Administration>Login Window>Security Tab. Check the Auto login box and you should be good to go-

Regarding sudo "root" and setting the password: once logged in, open a command prompt and type "sudo passwd", set the password and you should be able to login as root without issue.

 

[Nothinman]

Regarding sudo "root" and setting the password: once logged in, open a command prompt and type "sudo passwd", set the password and you should be able to login as root without issue.

There's little advantage to setting a root password though. You can't log into GDM as root by default, and you shouldn't anway, and if you want a root shell you can just run 'sudo -s'.

 

[Warthog912]

Agreed. I'm in CentOS at work most of the time logged in as root so I generally su to root immediately after opening a terminal session out of habit.