With the new Linux channel, I thought it would be a good time to install linux on a laptop i don't use anymore, and try to learn it. So I installed Ubuntu MATE on it today, and immediately hit several walls.
My biggest problem seems to be that my Terminal doesn't seem to know that I'm logged in. I can login on the graphical interface, and can do stuff there. But when I bring up any of the terminal screens, it ask me to login. I entered my profile and password, and it says incorrect login. Also when I tried to install a driver off the AMD website, it said i need to be the Super-User to do that. My profile is the administrator, and I made sure I have all the administrator privileges.
I'm having a few other issues, but once I get booted up, this one seems to be the one that hinders me the most. Right now I don't have anything on the laptop, so if I choose the one distribution that doesn't let you do anything, I'd be happy to try another one.
Thanks for any advice you can offer.
I'm not sure why the terminal won't let you log in. But the super user is different to administrator. You can either log in as root or start whichever command you want to run with 'sudo' (this is a safer option).
Did you manually do any user/groups modifications after you installed? Like adding your user account to other groups or something similar? Based off your post it sounds like you may have tried to supersede the permissions hierarchy that Linux wants you to user out of the box to get more of a Windows-style "just do what I tell you to do and don't ask me for permission to do it". I could be totally wrong.... just a hunch.
Is Terminal immediately asking you to login or only when you run a sudo command? E.G. I have Mint Cinnamon installed (literally just installed it an hour ago on a separate HDD to test against Ubuntu), have changed nothing in terms of users/groups, and when I launch Terminal I'm not asked to sign in. I get the standard user prompt username@machine ~ $.
I didn't mess with groups, I just went into User Privileges, and checked everything. and made sure my account type was administrator.
When I open the terminal in a window, I get a prompt like you described. When I hit Ctrl+Alt+ F1-6, it immediatly ask me to login, and won't let me do anything.
Generally, you're going to be asked for a password when you do something that might affect the system in a significant or potentially unchangeable way. It's linux's way of saying, "you've thought twice about this, right?"
What kinds of things are you trying to do at the console — install programs? changes files outside your home directory? @Dexter_Kane asked, but I'm not sure if you caught it: are you using the sudo command when you try to these things?
Being an "Admin" on linux is not the same as being the root user. The root user can do anything, even very stupid things, which is why you should not normally log yourself in as root (and why user-oriented distros like Ubuntu don't even give you the option: this is generally A Good Thing). sudo ("Switch User and DO something") is how you do "root things" without being constantly logged in as root.
Sorry I didn't catch that. I was trying to install drivers, and connect to a wifi network. I figured out why the wifi wasn't working. and after looking up the correct commands, I was able to install the drivers. My windowed terminal seems to work fine. But when I hit Ctrl+Alt+F1-6 it says "Linux_PC login: ". and then ask for a password. I tried my profile name and machine name, with the only password i set up, and it always says incorrect login.
So if the windowed terminal works, should I not worry about the other terminal screens? or is this still a big issue?
Ok i'm sorry for wasting forum space. I just tried logging in again and it worked. I guess i was entering something wrong.
Thank you guys so much for the help.
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When trying Linux for the first time, I recommend running it on a virtual machine. This will let you expirament and learn while still having the comfort of whatever other operating system you're used to.
In Linux, the administrator is known as root. It's a massive no-no to run a Linux system as root. With Linux, you have the ability to use sudo ("soo-doo") which will give you temporary root (admin) privileges. For example, if you wanted to install vlc media player from terminal, you'd use the following command:
sudo apt-get install vlc
To be clear, if you weren't logged in as root and tried to install vlc without sudo it wouldn't work.
The terminal conflict that you're experiencing probably has something to do with the fact that you're logged in as a root user (again, this is a bad idea). I recommend doing a fresh reinstall and making sure that when you create your user account that it doesn't have root privilege by default.
Any derivative of Ubuntu should provide the latest stable AMD driver for your machine without needing to go to the AMD website. If you choose to do so anyway, the driver likely comes packaged in an .rpm file. To install it with root privilege, use the following terminal command:
cd [directory of rpm file -- probably ~/Downloads]
sudo rpm -ivh [filename]
Hope this helps!
Edit: Didn't see that the problem was fixed for you until after I posted. Hope you learn something from this anyway :P
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Did you learn something? if so, everyone should be happy.
Don't ever worry about posting questions or problems. There are a multitude of smart people here that want to help you learn. That's what it's all about. Glad you got it sorted!