On Sunday 20 December 2015 07:16:57 Michele Calgaro wrote:

> On 12/20/2015 11:57 AM, Giuliano Colla wrote:
> > We can all agree that Gene is got a problem, and that it would be
> > nice to find a solution for his problem.
> >
> > But as his problem arises from a quite unsafe setting with sudo
> > stuff of his ubuntuish CNC, I wouldn't like is that, in order to
> > solve Gene's problem, something is done which might impair safety
> > for everybody else, as Michele's answer might imply.
>
> Correct. The idea is to explore a way to give the user a choice
> between typing the root password or run a program with something
> similar to sudo (tdesudo??).
> The solution should be such that by default the root password is
> required, but for those users who prefer (or have to) use sudo, an
> additional package should be available to overcome the "type the root
> password" problem.
>
> Cheers
>   Michele

IMO a separate package should not be needed. To that end, if the package 
asks for a pw, and gets the 1st users pw as a response, it should be 
happy and run. There is little or no difference between root and 1st 
user as 1st user is generally the one who originally setup the system 
and should know it well.

I was not aware, until this discussion, that debian did setup a root 
passwd, I had assumed that the buntu's inherited the sudo requirement 
from debian.  I've one other machine that is running a 14.04 lubuntu 
LTS, my lappy, and you have my curiosity piqued now, so its booting.  
That takes a while as it seems to be convinced it must do an fsck 
everytime it boots, on a 100 gig drive.  And that transition to sudo for 
everything is complete, there is not a passwd hash in the /etc/shadow 
file for root.

It probably needs an update session so we'll see what synaptic wants to 
install. 4 new packages, 52 to be upgraded. It was last done a couple 
weeks ago, so the packagers have been busy.  Updates I see include bind9 
and grub plus a grocery list of other stuff. A new kernel too IIRC.

So I am learning a bit, and now don't feel so crippled at having to use a 
root pw for some stuff. It was actually expected if it was pure debian.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Some mill pix are at:
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene/GO704-pix>