Please forgive me but I am new to Unbuntu. I installed version 20.04 on a VM on my Windows 10 laptop. I am the only user but I am not administrator.
How can I resolve this to make myself an administrator?
12 Answers
If you want to elevate your privileges, you'll need the sudo command. You could alternatively log in as the root user, which I would highly not recommend. You could destroy your operating system by accident, so just stick with the first method. Try if it works by updating your packages:
sudo apt updateIf you try this command without sudo, you should get an error message :)
Since the exact problem wasn't exactly specified, here are some solutions on root and administrator permissions.
Sudo
When running terminal commands but need admin permissions, use sudo. Example:
sudo apt updateSudo Su
You can also get permissions from sudo su. This will make your terminal window completely root.
WARNING: It is dangerous to use sudo su unless you know exactly what you are doing. If you accidentally do something wrong, you could hurt your system. Also, if you install some apps, those apps might only be available to root if you used sudo su.
Administrator in File Manager
If you're using the nautilus file manager (you probably are, since it's the default file manager when instlaling Ubuntu), you can use the plugin nautilus-admin.
You can install it with sudo apt install nautilus-admin, which lets you right-click in the file manager and select "open as administrator."
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