Password question.

[Ignazio Palmisano]

Steven Vollom wrote:
> Bruce Marshall wrote:
>> On Monday 24 November 2008, Steven Vollom wrote:
>>   
>>> My understanding was there is a difference between user and root.  I
>>> have always been referred to steven and user.  I never thought about my
>>> being the only one on my computer so that perhaps my password was root.  
>>>     
>> No, your steven password is NOT the root password.    steven + <steven's 
>> passwd>  allows you to use SUDO to issue commands AS ROOT.
>>
>> You need to grasp this concept before we can procede.
>>   
> I don't know what to do, Bruce.  I have reread it several times, I can't 
> see what you are saying.  What can ROOT do that SUDO cannot do?  My 
> password made SUDO work.  I know that it is me who is in error, it just 
> doesn't seem logical as I know the word Logical.

Your user "steven" can do anything root can do, and the password it 
needs to do that is the 37 char monster. I've just run the following 
test on my Kubuntu virtual machine:

passwd ignazio

and changed the password to testme1 (which was just complex enough for 
passwd not to complain)

then with the same command:

passwd ignazio

I changed it back to what it was before, so it IS possible for you to 
change your supersecure password to a slightly more friendly one. Just 
try one longer than 6 chars with a number in it.

Side effect of this: to use sudo you will not have to type a 37 char 
password any more, after changing it to a shorter one. This should 
simplify the original problem (if I understood it correctly, you want a 
terminal with root privileges because using sudo forced you to use the 
long password and that was a pain).

HTH,
I.