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The Not So Jaunty Jackalope - Updated 05/02/2009

Wed, 04/29/2009 - 05:45 — Ken Leyba

I had intended to create blog post about my frustration with Vista and how I finally installed Linux on my almost one year old PC.  A funny thing happened on the way to Linuxland, a roadblock whose name is Jaunty.  

So arrives the much hailed Jaunty, destined to be the final stake in the heart Vista.  For the few Windows applications I need, I begin by giving less than half of my disk to the new Vista install, a common clean start to a gradually failing Windows operating system.  Suspecting I wouldn't be using Vista anytime soon, I didn't bother with updates or anti-virus, saving those wonderful tasks for a later date.  The next step was the uneventful install of Jaunty, updates, multimedia codecs, and Virtual Box, nothing unusual.

My first indication of problems were burning a audio CD for my daily commute.  One of the touted features of Jaunty was the much improved Brasero CD/DVD burning software.  After building my list of tracks I began the burning process.  Stepping away and returning to my machine, there sat Brasero with a message “normalizing title...”  After a short on-line search, I found there is a bug with the normalizing plug-in for Brasero, that is installed and enabled by default.  No problem, turn off the plug-in and a audio CD is created, albeit with varying volume between tracks.

Since I had invested in a decent video card, I decided to activate the proprietary ATI driver.  This turned into a short lived experiment.  It basically brought Gnome to a crawl and locked up VLC when resizing windows.  Later research found this also not to be an isolated case.

It was the third problem that instigated this post.  I created an account for my wife and everything is fine for a the day.  The following day I need to install some additional software.  As a long time user of Unix and Linux, from my account, I attempt to become root at the command line with sudo su -.  The error I get is my user is not part of sudoers.  After a couple of various attempts at a workaround, I search on-line for recommendations, none that lead to a resolution.  I decide to boot into single user mode and hopefully edit the /etc/sudoers file.  No dice, I have to login and basically have the same problem.

Of course I don't know where my install CD is, so luckily I have a Knoppix DVD.  I boot into Knoppix and realize that I cannot use the visudo command to edit the /etc/sudoers file.  I would probably need to do a chroot environment.  Then I find while reading /etc/sudoers, all members of the admin group may gain root privileges.  I add my user to the admin group by editing the /etc/group file and I'm back in business after booting Jaunty again.

The third problem could have been a major issue for a new user.  Which would probably leave them locked out of any administrative tasks.  My next step is to decide if I wait for updates to solve these problems, move the next LTS version of Ubuntu, or even change to the future Fedora 11 or current  Debian 5, where I can at least login as root.

UPDATE:

The bug with the first user losing the ability to become root has been fixed by an update to the gnome-system-tools.  Apparently the bug has existed since Hardy (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS) and in addition to Jaunty there are fixes for Hardy, and Intrepid.  A reminder that the bug with the Normalize Brasero plugin has been confirmed and has been assigned an importance of medium.

Tags: 
Ubuntu
problems
Linux

Comments

Sander Marechal (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 08:27.
You do know that Ubuntu is `sudo` everything right? The first user on the system (i.e. you) has administrative rights. To give those rights to other people (i.e. give them sudo rights) use System->Administration->Users, edit a user and check the "administrative rights" checkbox. Also, `sudo aptitude install something` to install something, `sudo bash` to get a root prompt and `sudo passwd root` to set a root password so you can use `su` in the future. This is all pretty basic stuff and nothing unique to Ubuntu. Debian (and I believe Fedora as well) have an option in their installer to enable or disable root by default.

Ken Leyba - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 15:05.
<p class="rteleft">Yes, I know how Ubuntu gives the first user during install the ability to become root.&nbsp; That is why I indicated that I had to re-add my account to the &quot;admin&quot; group.&nbsp; I edited the blog to make that disctinction.&nbsp; It is apparent that adding the second user removed the first account from the &quot;admin&quot; group, thus locking me out.</p>

ABCC (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 19:44.
The 'canonical' way to become root on ubuntu is a quick 'sudo -i'. If I recall there actually isn't a root account at all, just a user with sudo rights.

Barry Klein (not verified) - Tue, 09/29/2009 - 01:12.
There is a 'root' account - but it is locked. There is one situation where you either need a root password or 'rescue disc' - if your root filesystem is corrupted so much that the automatic fsck won't fix it (a power failure can do it) - you will be asked to enter your root password for system administration. You won't be able to fix the filesystem unless you enter that password (on an unmodified Ubuntu system there isn't one!). You can, of course, fix it by booting a live CD, and using the command 'sudo fsck <partition name>'.

Anonymous (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 23:06.
Great post! Now make sure both users belong to the "pulse-rt" group; I just upgraded from Intrepid and found that I needed to place all users on my system to this group or they get no sound.

Sander Marechal (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 03:13.
Adding a second account should not remove the first from the admin group. I suggest you try to reproduce that and if it still happens, file a bug.

Anonymous (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 03:46.
Been using Jaunty since the Alphas and I haven't had any trouble yet.

Fred McKinney (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 16:42.
Ken, I have Jaunty Jackalope installed on my computer and I have no idea what you did, but I have had none of the above problems that you mentioned at all. I've never found myself locked out of the sudoers file once. I will, however, be burning some audio CDs this weekend of some southern gospel LPs from the 60's and 70's, so we'll see how that goes. If it acts up, I know that I can also download GnomeBaker and use that instead. In fact, I wanna say that GnomeBaker used to be the default CD-burning application in Ubuntu at one time...

Anonymous (not verified) - Fri, 05/01/2009 - 06:15.
You can enable the root account with sudo passwd The first password to enter will be yours, after that, you enter root's password twice. After that, you will be able to use su in a prompt when any user is logged in. Pierre

Anonymous (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 09:44.
I have Ubuntu 9.04 running on two desktops (one AMD with Nvidia graphics, one Intel with Intel graphics) and two laptops (One Intel with ATI graphics, one old Centrino with old ATI graphics) and have experienced none of your user install issues nor graphics issue. Maybe I had no trouble with the ATI drivers because they worked perfectly including compiz without the installation of non-supported prorietary drives. This is a first on Ubuntu systems for me. The Brasero bug is also something I never hit simply because I have always used k3b as a replacement on all my installs. It just works better for me.

bboozzoo (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 17:22.
1. man sudo reveals that sudo -H -s gives you... a root shell (yes, you might not believe but everything is there, in the manuals, what a surprise..) 2. I hardly find any connection (apart from being able to install) between proprietary ATI drivers (__proprietary__ in case you missed that) and Ubuntu. blaming Ubuntu, gnome, Linux, your dog for whoever else but not the company delivering the drivers for their 'miserable' state is a complete misunderstanding..

The blogosphere... (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 19:13.
[...] Chico: My first trial with Ubuntu - Hopeless! Techrepublic: Ubuntu 9.04: Wow Cooking with Linux: The Not So Jaunty Jackalope ZDNet: Ubuntu Jaunty - Positive and Negative Techworld.com: Don&#8217;t rest, Ubuntu has a way to [...]

Anonymous (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 19:56.
Ubuntu is always nothing but trouble. They try to dumb everything down, make it easier for a new user, but then when you have problems there it's really hard fixing it. I've seen people turn away from converting to ubuntu because when there is an issue, you need to go through 12 grueling steps in a black box instead of just 3 in a normal Linux OS. And deploying with known bugs, what a joke. Show stopping stupidity for most users.

David B. (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 20:37.
I think you may missed point about Ubuntu and using sudo. That's the way it's designed to be used. Regarding Brasero, I've found it to be less reliable than K3B, which is the first package I install after installing Ubuntu or Mint.

paul TheUnverified (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 20:53.
I haven't had much luck with any of the *buntus. I really don't want to sound like all criticism and no joy, but I've tried them on several arch's and had disappointing results on each. My last attempt (8.10 Intrepid) was the closest to an enjoyable experience, but I too am put off by the "sudoer" policy they have. Further, in each case, I found the performance was extremely slow. On a couple of the installs, it was understandable since one was a P3 with only 512MB and another was a 1GHz Celeron with 1GB. But when I tried them on two different 64-bit machines (one an Athlonx2) ea with 2GB, I decided something was not quite up to the task. I'd love to see a Linux distro really make a showing against win-D'ohs, but I personally don't think the *buntus are the ones. When I set up a friend or advise a friend re a Linux distro, it's either CentOS, PCLinuxOS, or sidux depending on what they intend to do. And on older hw, Zenwalk or VectorLinux. No *buntu for me, thank you.

nevyn (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 21:19.
Despite all the optimism around Linux on the desktop I still can not, in good conscience, recommend Linux as a suitable desktop to most users. I will do installations if I have set parameters. i.e. I want to be able to burn cd's, cruise the net, play music/movies and write the occasional document. If I can get the parameters sorted out, configuring a very stable system is fairly easy (except where bugs creep which is why I've moved back to Debian despite being occasionally frustrated by the software versions). But for the most part, if someone were to say to me that they come from a Windows background and want to install Linux themselves you HAVE to offer an avenue for support. To not do so is immoral in my opinion. And here's where we end up with switching costs. The cost to me as someone who volunteers their time to help people with the migration or the cost to them to pay someone to support their system. Unless this cost is heavily reduced, I can't see Linux being huge on the desktop. Regards, Nevyn.

petitbob (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 21:49.
hello, try SimplyMEPIS 8.0, based on Debian 5.0. it's a very good nice distro. also the very new mandriva 2009.1 ! @+ petitbob

roundyz (not verified) - Wed, 04/29/2009 - 22:07.
People in the linux world go nuts over a new release of ubuntu. I really don't see the point. I see it as a fantastic way to tarnish a distribution, giving way for half a million reviewers to give thier thoughts and to compare against the (allmost) same versions of software just packaged in a different way on different distributions. I too early on in my linux life enjoyed trying out different distributions, then I found Gentoo. I have had the same version on my laptop for ~3 years now. Works flawlessly.

vectorunknown (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 00:14.
I'm seconding the bad experience you report. Jaunty is not a great release. I've been using Ubuntu on a thinkpad for about 3 years. After this recent release, everything runs very slow and I can't really pin down the problem, --I tried using 'top' to find processes using too much power but didn't find anything unusual. Even gedit runs really slow and when scrolling text I'm experiencing some serious lag. My mom's computer has an ati card that isn't supported by the newest ATI drivers and so her X11 file had to be configured and the open source radeon drivers had to be installed. 'And is it just me or is the integration of Brasero puzzling? Nautilus' cd-burning utility was great, -it was small it worked and you didn't need to open up a large interface and deal with all of that stuff that people using nero on windows had to deal with. Brasero's integration is, IMO, a regression for most users.

Andre P. (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 00:27.
I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on one partition. Then after making sure everything was up to date I installed streamtuner and audacious. Streamtuner is a very practical (IMHO) GUI audio stream directory browser. I used the Search function and the application crashed ! I have Streamtuner installed on my Debian Lenny/Squeeze partition also...it doesn't crash when I search for a stream. Ken, what you are saying confirms what I have read on other blogs: Ubuntu rushes its distributions. Some of their software is from Debian Experimental ! how stable can that be ? For me Debian Lenny/Squeeze is the best solution.

Johannes (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 01:59.
Thanks a lot for the solution to the NORMALIZE bug. ot bothered me today, grrrr.... From the bug report you mention: Found a workaround: Its easy to disable normalize since it's a plugin. Just chose "Plugins" from the "Edit"-Menu and clear checkbox beneath "Normalize". Now everything works fine - except normalizing of course ;) (Check out the Jaunty Guide on my Website!)

Ikon (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 06:37.
One sad thing I learned at the very beggining of my migration to linuxland is that Nvidia has open drivers and Ati has closed drivers. This gives, that you can compile a working driver for nvidia cards in a pinch, and struggle the same way with configuring a so called working driver for ati cards. It's a sad thing. For every new users who wish to turn to linux, I always -ALWAYS- suggest that they first search the web 3 times for forums, blogs and any kind of information according the current hardware they have or have in mind to purchase. As long as hardware companies do not really think that linux is a major OS, things with HW are a bit tricky for us. Now I have 3 machines built FOR linux use in mind, and works like a charm. Last but not least, new users to linux should not think that they can change to a different OS without "learning" the differences. The key is to "learn". I can be a the best example here, as I was hesitating between windows and linux at the beggining, then I have learnt more and more things about this baby and after a while I have just realised that this was the OS I was hoping for. Disclaimer: Linux won't do the job for everyone! Keep it in mind, whoever would like to judge me as a linux priest! ^_^

David (not verified) - Thu, 04/30/2009 - 15:59.
In addition to all the SUDO stuff in Linux, you can set the root password in Ubuntu by typing: sudo passwd root in terminal. Once you supply the correct 'Admin' password, you will be allowed to assign a password to the root account. Then login as root in terminal by typing: su - root If you provide the password you just assigned, you will actually get the root prompt: # Note: When you typed 'su - root' the minus sign '-' told the OS to execute the root .profile (dot profile). The minus sign may be omitted. Now you can be an 'old-school' command line warrior just like in the good 'ole days of UNIX!

Anonymous (not verified) - Fri, 05/01/2009 - 04:11.
use 8.04 hardy,jaunty is just a toy. don't use brasero to burn cd, use k3b. if you use bitmapping for decoration windows option in compiz you will fix your little issue, there is a learning curve to use a system.... learn, then, talk. kind regards.

Anonymous (not verified) - Sun, 06/07/2009 - 14:06.
And you bought into it. The release date for Jaunty was April 30th.


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