Arch Linux sudo/yaourt

Software & Operating Systems Linux
1

I’m trying to install Davinci Resolve on Arch Linux, unfortunately it’s a dangerous challenge. From what I’ve found it seems I need to set up sudo on arch to install yaourt which from what I here is no longer supported.

I have sudo installed and am in the visudo file as root.

I thought I would uncomment

## Uncomment to allow any user to run sudo if they know the password
## of the user they are running the command as (root by default).

Below them are these two lines, do they need to be uncommented?

# Defaults targetpw  # Ask for the password of the target user
# ALL ALL=(ALL) ALL  # WARNING: only use this together with 'Defaults targetpw'

which warns about ‘Defaults targetpw’ which I can’t figure what that means.

In the visudo file I can only press delete not backspace to remove anything
Also I’m unware of how to save, perhaps ctl + o enter maybe or ctl+x. Not that I want to save anything tell I know what I’m doing.

If anyone has info on how to properly config visudo that would help greatly.

P

2

No, once you install the sudo package, make your user part of the sudo group and then log back in.

You do this by:

# as root, where $USER is your desired user.
usermod -aG $USER sudo

So for example:

usermod -aG pmilleroly27 sudo

You do not need to modify the sudoers file.

Lastly, visudo is just vi. Lookup the documentation if you have any questions regarding vi.

2 Likes
3

Just to clarify error on yaourt install

input : makepkg -si

output: Installing package package-query with pacman -U…
[sudo] password for pmilleroly27:
pmilleroly27 is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

When I followed your instructions I got this

[root@archlinux ~]# usermod -aG pmilleroly27 sudo
usermod: user ‘sudo’ does not exist
[root@archlinux ~]# usermod -aG pmilleroly27
Usage: usermod [options] LOGIN

Options:
-c, --comment COMMENT new value of the GECOS field
-d, --home HOME_DIR new home directory for the user account
-e, --expiredate EXPIRE_DATE set account expiration date to EXPIRE_DATE
-f, --inactive INACTIVE set password inactive after expiration
to INACTIVE
-g, --gid GROUP force use GROUP as new primary group
-G, --groups GROUPS new list of supplementary GROUPS
-a, --append append the user to the supplemental GROUPS
mentioned by the -G option without removing
the user from other groups
-h, --help display this help message and exit
-l, --login NEW_LOGIN new value of the login name
-L, --lock lock the user account
-m, --move-home move contents of the home directory to the
new location (use only with -d)
-o, --non-unique allow using duplicate (non-unique) UID
-p, --password PASSWORD use encrypted password for the new password
-R, --root CHROOT_DIR directory to chroot into
-P, --prefix PREFIX_DIR prefix directory where are located the /etc/* files
-s, --shell SHELL new login shell for the user account
-u, --uid UID new UID for the user account
-U, --unlock unlock the user account
-v, --add-subuids FIRST-LAST add range of subordinate uids
-V, --del-subuids FIRST-LAST remove range of subordinate uids
-w, --add-subgids FIRST-LAST add range of subordinate gids
-W, --del-subgids FIRST-LAST remove range of subordinate gids

I tried with out sudo since based off output lol and got that list of commands. Sorry I messed up what am I doing wrong?

I thought it was

usermod -aG pmilleroly27 sudo

4

Ah yeah sorry my bad.

Swap your user name and sudo in the command. I can never remember which was correct.

5

See this for alternatives to yaourt:
Archwiki - AUR helpers

1 Like
6

Just wondering if @pmilleroly27 checked out the github for the studio version?, specifically the “manual installation” instructions half way down the page.

Might not be the version that you need, but worth giving a shot?

7

In any fresh install of Arch you need to edit the /etc/sudoers to uncomment the line of the group you want to enable sudo.

Usually I have the group wheel enable (the group is your choice):

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

and I add myself to it:

usermod -a -G wheel $USER

(as @Dynamic_Gravity corrected, your username comes at the end)

But if you want to install DaVinci or any other program from AUR I think PAMAC is a good alternative to the old yaourt. Nowadays it is the only program I install manually from AUR and it does not mess with your /etc/pacman.conf

8

  1. The “Defaults targetpw” option means that sudo asks for the password of the account that you’re running the command as (often root) rather than the default of the account you’re logged in as. It’s not required, and is arguably a not very sensible way of configuring sudo.

  2. The “ALL ALL=(ALL) ALL” allows all users on all hosts (that this sudoers file is installed on) to run as all users and run all commands. Kind of goes with the “Defaults targetpw” option as it would be kind of daft to do it without. As other have said, something like “%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL” would be more sensible - the “%” specifies a group rather than a user.

  3. The visudo command isn’t vi (although it seems to default to using vi with Arch); it prevents multiple edits at the same time and performs a syntax check after you’ve saved your changes. You may be able to specify a different editor: sudo EDITOR=nano visudo (although it may need to be configured to accept that).