rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-26 23:02:52

ostrolek wrote:

All I wanted was to open some app as root. So, it is either sudo or su. Sudo didn't work, but su worked.

How could `su` work if you didn't set a root password?

There is no option to enter the root password in the BunsenLabs rc2 installer, only the user password is entered.

The root account is locked in a standard BunsenLabs installation, no root password is set at all.

damo · 2016-02-26 23:20:39

ostrolek wrote:

......
BTW, one question was not answered from the #1
@johnraff
If Synaptic Package Manager is installed, does offering to install some apps through pipe-menus has any real value as Synaptic offers to install any app in the repos, whatever the repos?

A convenience for new users, who may never have used synaptic, or who don't know what might be available. The menu options are for commonly requested default apps, but we want to keep the iso size down, so they are there as a post-install option.

spacex · 2016-02-26 23:25:26

ostrolek wrote:

^ Did you install it to a usb stick?

Nope. To sda6 on my ssd

spacex · 2016-02-26 23:26:38

Sector11 wrote:

Well, if you ask the right questions and get the right answers it can save a lot of work.

Nah, it was not the only reason why I wanted to try the RC2. You have some scripts that I wanted to study a little bit

Last edited by spacex (2016-02-26 23:35:51)

spacex · 2016-02-26 23:34:27

@HoaS

Just stupid me thinking. Is it possible for a user that is not a member of the sudo group, to create a root-account post-install? Because he is not saying that the first user wasn't created. Just that it wasn't in the sudo group...

It shouldn't be possible, but I haven't actually tested if it is...

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-26 23:36:18

spacex wrote:

Is it possible for a user that is not a member of the sudo group, to create a root-account post-install?

Yes, but you would have to boot with /bin/bash as init then remount the root directory rw to make any modifications.

EDIT: Or chroot into the system.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2016-02-26 23:36:40)

nobody0 · 2016-02-27 07:17:55

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

ostrolek wrote:
All I wanted was to open some app as root. So, it is either sudo or su. Sudo didn't work, but su worked.
How could `su` work if you didn't set a root password?

You haven't been with Linux too long, have you? In the earlier days, people were even against sudo. If you have a Bunsenlabs install, or any other Linux distro install, just write su in the terminal and see what happens.

tknomanzr · 2016-02-27 07:57:33

If you arent part of sudo group you end up with the message "Root account is locked. Starting shell." whereupon you end up dropped to console. You can login but not make any changes that would fix things. I did this to myself recently, by accidentally wiping out my group memberships.

nobody0 · 2016-02-27 08:00:30

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

ostrolek wrote:
I installed it to the usb stick the normal way
What does "the normal way" mean?
Please explain how you transferred the ISO image to the USB stick.

There are many ways to transfer the ISO image to a USB stick. Here's one way,

The GRUB bootloader needs to be installed onto the memory stick you are installing #! onto (/dev/sda will be your internal hard drive, do NOT install the GRUB bootloader here).
Direct the GRUB to install to /dev/sdb or sdc depending on which is the live stick and which is the install stick.
This would probably be simpler if you had the live version of #! on a DVD and booted from that... wink
I wouldn't bother with FAT32 partions or anything like that -- just use one ext4 partition on the install stick (plus swap at the end, if you have less than 2GB of RAM), and direct GRUB to install to that single partition (/dev/sdb or sdc with no partition number). just treat the memory stick as if it were an attatched hard drive.

pvsage · 2016-02-27 09:12:38

It is true that loss of sudo privileges is not uncommon in Debian systems; however, as illustrated by the examples provided by ostrolek, this is mostly isolated to moving from stable to testing or unstable when there are changes in parsing the sudoers file.

ostrolek wrote:

^ Did you install it to a usb stick?

I have.

"The normal way": Copy the ISO to USB with dd, boot into live session and use Gparted to format the target drive as necessary (the installer's formatting utility sometimes has trouble), reboot into the installer. (n.b. I don't have a "usb stick" per se, but I have two μSD-to-USB host adapters and several μSD cards, so where I write "thumbdrive" substitute "μSD card and USB host adapter".)

Installation into target thumbdrive proceeded without a hitch, if (predictably) slowly. At the GRUB installer, selected /dev/sdd on the assumption that the goal of installing to thumbdrive is to have a portable installation that can be booted on any compatible hardware. Rebooted, selecting the thumbdrive as the boot device. GRUB failed to load. OPENING NEW BUG: GRUB installed to USB Flash media from Debian installer fails to load.

Rebooted into main distro, ran update-grub with new installation attached. Rebooted again, selected new installation (at /dev/sdd1) from GRUB on /dev/sda; once logged in, ran grub-install in terminal, edited /etc/default/grub to add GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true (again on the assumption that we want a fully portable install), ran update-grub, all successfully completed with sudo.
xkcd 583: Could not reproduce.

Rebooted again, selecting thumbdrive as boot device; this time GRUB loaded successfully. Sudo still works properly; no need to invoke root account with su.

@ostrolek: Would you care to amend your narrative?

Last edited by pvsage (2016-02-27 09:40:06)

nobody0 · 2016-02-27 09:40:23

^You've explained it quite well. You didn't have the problem I had. You had some other problem. Reason could be anything. Installing to the usb was just experimenting. I just quoted how #! was installed on to a usb stick by someone.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-27 11:05:27

ostrolek wrote:

If you have a Bunsenlabs install, or any other Linux distro install, just write su in the terminal and see what happens.

From my BunsenLabs rc2-2 system:

empty@TheLab ~ % su
Password: 
su: Authentication failure
1 empty@TheLab ~ %

I typed in my user password, this is the only password that I entered during the installation.

The BunsenLabs rc2 ISO image installer does *not* ask for a root password, it only asks for a user password.

In a stock BunsenLabs system, the root account does not have a password set and is thus not accessible via the su(1) command.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-27 11:09:32

ostrolek wrote:

There are many ways to transfer the ISO image to a USB stick. Here's one way,
The GRUB bootloader needs to be installed onto the memory stick you are installing #! onto (/dev/sda will be your internal hard drive, do NOT install the GRUB bootloader here).
Direct the GRUB to install to /dev/sdb or sdc depending on which is the live stick and which is the install stick.
This would probably be simpler if you had the live version of #! on a DVD and booted from that... wink
I wouldn't bother with FAT32 partions or anything like that -- just use one ext4 partition on the install stick (plus swap at the end, if you have less than 2GB of RAM), and direct GRUB to install to that single partition (/dev/sdb or sdc with no partition number). just treat the memory stick as if it were an attatched hard drive.

That is *not* a method to transfer the ISO image to a USB stick

That sounds like instructions to install a system to a USB stick, which is a different matter entirely.

It also reads like something I may have written but that is irrelevant.

Anyway, I didn't ask for "one way", I asked how *you* transferred the ISO image to the USB stick?

Please answer my simple questions, you are being very evasive.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-27 11:14:34

Perhaps I am confusing you with my terms.

Take us through this one step at a time, please.

You downloaded the rc2 ISO image and then what did you do with that ISO image?

How exactly did you go from a downloaded ISO image to a system installed on a USB stick?

Please list all of the steps taken, thank you.

nobody0 · 2016-02-27 17:39:07

^ The laptop has few usb sockets, right? So, you transfer (copy/burn) the live image to one usb stick, and then check it if it would boot live, then put another usb stick to one of the remaining usb socket, and from the 1st usb stick install the iso to the 2nd usb stick. Btw, you appear to know how its done, but you keep on asking me questions.

You say, su didn't work with your BLRC2 install? Okay. Uninstall sudo and then try su. Does it work with your Arch install?

Another quote

If you really want to use sudo without a password here's how...
open a terminal & type "sudo nano /etc/sudoers" enter your user password (the password you use to log on with) scroll down to the bottom of the file and add the 2 lines:
<your user name> ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
<your user name> ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
(where <your user name> is the name you log on with) press <ctrl> & "x" together then press "y" and enter.

And, another

sudoers is read-only
Yes, the file /etc/sudoers is intentionally set read-only, even for root!
The explanation usually offered is that it was set up this way to ensure that admins only ever edit it via the command visudo. However, this theory doesn't quite hold water. Being mode 0440 does nothing to impede sudo nano /etc/sudoers - most text editors will let you edit the file without complaining about the read-only bit. Besides, any time you do mangle /etc/sudoers, the fix may be as simple as su -c visudo, which is nothing compared to the kind of recovery procedure you'd have to go through if you broke something like /etc/inittab (mode 0644). So if there's a good reason for the unorthodox permissions, it's a mystery - contributions welcome.

https://wiki.debian.org/sudo
Nothing is bug free, for its done by humans.

Last edited by nobody0 (2016-02-27 17:49:16)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-27 17:49:53

ostrolek wrote:

You say, su didn't work with your BLRC2 install? Okay. Uninstall sudo and then try su

empty@TheLab ~ % sudo apt remove sudo
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gdebi-core gir1.2-vte-2.90 python3-apt python3-chardet python3-debian
  python3-pkg-resources python3-six
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gdebi gksu sudo
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 3,005 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
(Reading database ... 120517 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing gdebi (0.9.5.5+nmu1) ...
Removing gksu (2.0.2-9) ...
Removing sudo (1.8.10p3-1+deb8u3) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.58) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) ...
empty@TheLab ~ % su
Password: 
su: Authentication failure
1 empty@TheLab ~ %                                                                     :(

nobody0 · 2016-02-27 18:35:39

^
What happens if you do

$ su -

?

Last edited by nobody0 (2016-02-27 18:37:56)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-27 18:47:49

empty@TheLab ~ % su -
Password: 
su: Authentication failure
1 empty@TheLab ~ %                                                                     :(

nobody0 · 2016-02-27 19:01:14

^ Then it can't be a Debian (BL) install, or you write something other than your user passwd to get that "Authentication failure".

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-27 19:08:42

*sigh* That output is from a BunsenLabs system installed from the rc2 ISO image and my normal user password was entered and the `sudo` package has been removed.

How did you put the downloaded ISO image onto the first USB? (the second USB stick being for the installed system)

There are several ways to do that and not all of them work.

If you tell us how you put the ISO image on the USB stick that was used to launch the installer program then we can narrow down the source of this bug.

#41 2016-02-26 23:02:52

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#42 2016-02-26 23:20:39

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#43 2016-02-26 23:25:26

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#44 2016-02-26 23:26:38

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#45 2016-02-26 23:34:27

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#46 2016-02-26 23:36:18

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#47 2016-02-27 07:17:55

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#48 2016-02-27 07:57:33

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#49 2016-02-27 08:00:30

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#50 2016-02-27 09:12:38

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#51 2016-02-27 09:40:23

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#52 2016-02-27 11:05:27

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#53 2016-02-27 11:09:32

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#54 2016-02-27 11:14:34

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#55 2016-02-27 17:39:07

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#56 2016-02-27 17:49:53

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#57 2016-02-27 18:35:39

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#58 2016-02-27 18:47:49

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#59 2016-02-27 19:01:14

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

#60 2016-02-27 19:08:42

Re: rc2 feedback (ostrolek)

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