can I change root password

[yaye]

It is: sudo passwd

But this only makes sense for making it a bit more difficult for an attacker with physical access to your computer, to get root permissions on your machine by booting it into recovery mode.....................


................Logging into a root desktop is beyond plain dumb. It's outright insane. Ask any experienced Linux user.

Thanks for your reply. I know about the commands. I just wanted to know that it is still possible to assign root a different password and login as root in graphics mode. I don't have to login as root in graphics mode often, and when I do I am not connected to the network, but when I do, it saves me time and the results of sudo typing errors.

I've used your site on several occasions. Thanks for the info there.

[yaye]

with Mint 18.2 is it no longer possible to give the root account a password

This is easy and I had described it already 3 weeks ago. This is doable with all versions of Mint.

and login graphically as well? .... If this is the case with Mint, I'll be looking for a new distro. Debian or Fedora.

Do as you like to insist in a mistake. Nobody cares.

As I stated in the previous post, I know how to do it. I just wanted to make sure that it is still possible. I know nobody cares. I don't care that nobody cares.

[Cosmo.]

I just wanted to make sure that it is still possible.

It is not.

[yaye]

Thanks for clarifying that.

[sfzombie13]

Pjotr, it is not intended to stop anyone with physical access, it is intended to stop attacks which retrieve the rot password from memory, as one i just read about in windows last week, which is stopped by having a separate standard user account, which this crap in mint completely does away with. i found the sudo passwd to change the root password, so this helps. i also believe that you can still login as root in the gui, by changing a line in the gdm3 conf file, if mint uses that, i haven't checked yet. the main reason i like to be able to login as root in a gui is for setting up a new computer, it saves a lot of sudo crap. knowing that all you need to do is put sudo in front of every command kind of makes it easy for an attacker to bypass this so-called protection also.

[sfzombie13]

yaye, i found https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... n-from-gui which allows a root login to the gui

[yaye]

yaye, i found https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... n-from-gui which allows a root login to the gui

Thanks. When I have some time, I'll take a look at it. Time constraints are precisely why I want to able able to login to X as root. If I'm doing that it is because something is already very wrong and I know how to correct it quickly. As I remember, the author(s) of sudo stated it is now being used in a way that was never intended for it to be used. Imagine, after almost twenty years of using Linux, I now have to be protected from myself. Seems the freedom I now have is to find another distro. I need a distro that has a developer mode like my Android phones, and lets you unlock additional features (in my case root login to X).

[yaye]

I'm able to log into X as root in Mint, but the Users and Groups applet starts then freezes with a spinning cursor. The Users and Groups applet is now configured to not allow being run by root (something to do with Policy Kit as I remember). I had a hardware failure many years ago. The drive containing the /home partition died. At that time, I was able to remove the drive and put in a new one, boot up and login as root in X, partition the new drive, set it as /home, format it, update fstab and recreate the users using the Users and Groups applet. I then transferred the users data and settings from the ClearOS file server back to the /home partition. When Ubuntu disabled running the Users and Groups applet as root in X, I left and came to Mint. Later, I remember seeing step after step after step instructions using sudo at the terminal to do things like this on the Ubuntu forum, and thinking, "You've got to be kidding!". Now Mint has done the same thing.