First; If you use the "Post Reply" button instead of the "Quick Reply" box you will see a number of options at the top of the reply box. One of them is for quote tags and one is for code tags.
I am not sure how you use them but assume it is pretty easy. I find typing them faster and it works in the Quick Reply box. To start any sort tag you put that word, code or quote, inside [x] inplace of the x. Type or paste what you want inside the tags and then end with [/x] again with code or quote in place of the x.
You don't need to use sudo to Switch User (su). This can be done at a normal user prompt ($) because it is switching you to another normal user. You will be asked for that users password. Can't show actual results as my added users account has expired. Clem is a user that is for trying things out on. Like sudoers file configuration and I have been neglecting to log in as Clem. Will need to get Root to straighten that out. But it works like;
Code:
sam@lounge:~$ su clem
Password:
Your account has expired; please contact your system administrator
su: Authentication failure
sam@lounge:~$
If that damned clem had been maintaining his account that would look like;
Code:
sam@lounge:~$ su clem
Password:
clem@lounge:~$
Note that the ~$ in sam@lounge:~$ means that I am working from /home/sam and in the other case from /home/clem. This really is different.
If I ran wget -c /media/LinuxInfo/Linux/ISO/debian-7.7.0-amd64-netinst.iso from either of those prompts the resulting ISO will end up in the home directory of the user to whom the prompt belongs.
If I were to want to look at package information at the clem prompt about Gimp I would have to type;
Code:
apt-cache show gimp
because clem doesn't have the aliases in his ~/.bashrc file that sam does. As sam I would be alble to;
Those are just a small indication of the differences in different cli "environments" and show some of the things that can be different between users.
If for some reason I wanted to use some of Clems bookmarks I could su to clem, and at the clem prompt type "iceweasel" to open the Debian clone of FF right here in my sam account and be using clems default profile.
But I need to know clems password to do that. This is why different users have different passwords.
It is also why, if you don't get scared off of Linux, you can use one /home partition and have several separate different installs of any Linux or BSD distros on their own / partition and not have them conflict. Each has to have a unique user name. Then when you log in you get the correct ~/.foo files.
I have several Victim installs. They are strictly for experimentation that could, and frequently does, break them. Currently there are 4 of them, 3 Debian based and one Manjaro. If they all used the same user name there would only be one /home/<user name> directory. The aliases I have in the .bashrc files on the Debian based ones for package management would be useless for the Manjaro user. And OpenBox config for Manjaro is not going to do much good for the Xfce configuration of 2 of the Debian installs and may well conflict with the OpenBox configuration in the Debian OpenBox install. As they all have different users, however, it is no problem at all and saves an awful lot of space.
I mention this because you seem to have some tendencies that I have.
When I first installed, indeed first saw Linux in person, it was with Ubuntu 8.04. My wife and I had bought our second computer after using one built in 98 for us. This of course ran W98. It finally packed it in in 08. So she goes and buys a Dell with Vista installed. W98 was better. New box was a quad core 2.4GHz compared to the old P2 at 350MHz. Ran slower than the old one for everything we used daily. Spread sheets, word processing and so forth.
Bought another HDD and installed Ubuntu. I had become pretty adept at fixing problems in Windows. Still not too bad at it on my Dreaded Mother in Laws Vista box. Thought I new what I was doing and really loved the power Linux gave me over the computer. This resulted in breaking 8.04 5 times the first 7 days.
I thought this was great fun and learned a lot in a hurry. My wife, however, was not amused. She has this strange idea that your OS should actually work all the time.
On that 7th day, I did my last reinstall of 8.04 on most of the hard drive. Then I installed 8.04 on the rest of the drive. I used that second install more than our production install. I did anything that was thought of to do to the production install on Playtime (host name of the second install) first. I did package update/upgrade chores on Playtime first even.
Also learned that installing on / and /home partitions is vastly superior to installing only on /. Converted the production install (much easier to simply install on more than one in the first place) to / and /home. Actually still have that /home partition on this box but with Squeeze (Debian 6) running on the / partition.
I tinker on things. Most things. An OS is easy to tinker on and you learn a lot doing so. You also learn, many times, that you didn't fully understand what you were doing. While this is a very good way to learn things, at least I think so, it can be very inconvenient in a lot of ways.
You really don't need a lot of room for a / partition. Most recommend 10gigs. I think that is small as I install a lot of stuff to try it out. I would go for your main install with 20gigs. Make your /home partition fairly small something like even 10 gigs. Make another partition of 10 gigs and leave it alone. Use the rest of your drive for one more partition for data. This will max out your 4 partition limit on a MSDos Partition table which your box is using.
You need another one for swap. Make your first partition, the 20gig /, a primary partition. Then create one large "extended" partition. This is a hacked version of a primary partion that allows you to make "logical" partition within it.
Put your /home, empty 10gig (for a 2nd /), data partition and your swap partition in the extended partition. Set this up ahead of doing the install using your live session. Format all of them to ext4 except the swap (obviously).
You can then use the live session to install your system. Chose the manaul option when it gets to partitioning. That way you can really easily point the installer at the partition you want to use. Install on the 20gig / and the /home partition. You will see that there is a place to tell the installer to format the partitions or leave them as is. You can take your pick on this first install as they are already formated.
Then just do another install. Point the installer this time at the small / partition and the same /home. Use a different user name. DO NOT LET THE INSTALLER format the /home partition which would wipe out your first installs /home/<user name> and thus screw that install.
Installer will format the swap. You only need one swap partition. You only use one OS at a time they will share nicely. Keep most of your data on the data partition.
I know one guy on another forum who uses 10gig / partions and a 3gig /home for each install. Has a huge data partition that mounts with each OS. All you really need that /home for is the ~/.foo files. I like to actually keep some files there though but he doesn't. He will not share a /home because he refuses to use any thing but one user name for all his installs.
I think he is nuts. He knows I am nuts. We both agree that keeping your data on a separate partition is generally a good thing. You can, for instance, then set up your music library on the data partition. If you use the same music player then when it is set up on one install you can put that /home/sam/.config/deadbeef (in my case) in all your installs. It is set up to read the /media/FontOFiles/Fount/Music file as the source of music. That path is exactly what every other install is looking for too.
You just need all installs to have the data partition mounted in the same place under the same name as the other installs. This is all controlled by your /etc/fstab file and you will need the "mount point" directory to exist where ever you put it. That for things like this is usually in your /media directory.
The installer should be able to set this all up for you in the manual partitioning section. You click on a partition and there is some (haven't used an Ubuntu installer since late 2011 when 12.04-testing started) screen that comes up to configure the partition, click on the data partition and you should then be asked a number of things, NEVER let the installer format the thing, you will be asked where to mount it and given a list to choose from, one option should be to write it in yourself. So just enter /media/Data (or what ever you want to call that mountpoint).
When you boot the data partition should mount just like any other part of the install, the mountpoint will have been created and the fstab written to handle it.
This also gives you only one thing you really need to backup to protect your data.
As this will be your first install experience and you have lots to learn keep things simple. Do not use LVM (logical volume management which is primarily intended for servers but is extremely popular with Ubuntu users for some reason). Do not encrypt anything. You WILL loose data judging from all the treads crying out for help about just that. Neither is that hard to deal with as far as I can see. I know encryption is not hard to deal with but you have to take some precautions on where you keep your keys and how you keep them so that they can be used to get to your data if, for instance, your drive packs it in but you can do a recovery on it. Great, now you have saved your data but it is encrypted and you can't use it. Avoid those 2 things, they are common pitfalls for new Ubuntu users.
Encryption is silly unless you are really paranoid for some really good reason like you are planning to invade some other country or over throw your own government. Or running a slavery trade business. Other than that, stick with good password protection and avoid letting people use your account.
I like a system with no sudo premissions for anyone but there are advantages to using it as it can help avoid making terrible mistakes. I like to have an account that has no permissions to see any other files than the /home/<user> directory which belongs to that account. Can't even see the file names anywhere else.
I also like my bios access to have a password although many people know how to bypass that. Many more don't know how. Same with the grub boot loader. It can be password protected. Agian it is not something that can't be gotten around. But they have to know how.
All security, anywhere, is not aimed at perfection. It is aimed at making your business, house, barn, car, or computer more trouble to crack into than the next guys what ever is. So they go and do his instead.
Perfect security on a computer would be one that is installed with all the bells and whistles of security, not connected to the internet, kept in a vault, and the combination to the vault forgotten, and the door welded shut. Hell, encrypt it while you are at it.
You can play with encryption when you get some other things figured out. And LVM too. I, personally, don't see the advantage of it. Can to some extent on a server but with sensible planning and an efi instead of MSDos partition table I just don't see the point on a personal use box. But I do a lot of things just because I can so that right there is a great reason. Just wait before doing it.
