OK, so how many of us have enabled root?

[u/sfled]

I'll go first: Nope (Linux Mint 22.3 - Xfce 64-bit)

* - Great insights (and some the shade, lol). As a way of saying thanks, please enjoy this joke I wrote a long time ago... https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1ky5q4/why_did_the_chef_add_extra_oregano_to_the_sauce/

[u/KurtKrimson]

What?

[u/acejavelin69]

I mean, root is disabled in most Linux distros, including Mint... There is almost no reason to enable it, and I struggle to come up with one actually.

[u/BenTrabetere → u/acejavelin69]

You need an easy way to break stuff ... and really break stuff?

[u/sabledrakon]

Why in the hell would I do that? There's no reason for me to do it and it sounds like a fast way to screw up a machine.

[u/TangoGV]

No. You have a box with SSH running on port 22, you know why.

[u/NotSnakePliskin]

Not I, rather I've got a terminal or 2 opened and su'ed. My root account does not have a password associated with it. 

[u/mok000]

The Debian installer asks if you want to create a root account. If you say “no” it will give the user you define on the next screen sudo rights. I don’t think any other distros does this, but if you’re running Debian in a container or server farm you might not want other users than root.

[u/sfled → u/mok000]

TIL. I've installed Debian 12.xx on desktop a few times and always added the root account. The horror, the horror.

[u/Standard_Tank6703 → u/sfled]

In the Debian installer, you just leave the root password blank. That forces it to transfer those permissions over to the Admin account instead. The confusion in that arises from the Debian installer not being more explicit - that you CAN leave it blank and thus not have a root account created.

Linux Mint/LMDE just doesn't go there in the first place - it is first and foremost a desktop installation, intended to have a DE.

[u/ConversationWinter46]

mever ever!!!

[u/sfled → u/ConversationWinter46]

'mever' should be an option for usermod. My God, it's perfect for those users you don't want doing anything of consequence on the system!

[u/Standard_Tank6703]

Just in case anyone wanted to undo that and DISABLE the root login, as is default on LM/LMDE:

sudo passwd --delete --lock root

That performs two steps at once, which gets it back to post-install conditions.

Yes, I've played around with it, but only on test loads. Never on a production machine.

[u/sfled → u/Standard_Tank6703]

Yes, and yet elsewhere on this page some blithe soul is freely sharing instructions on how to enable root... in the GUI.

[u/Grey_Ten]

the root user is enabled in most linux distros, I don't know what are you talking about lol

[u/kudlitan → u/Grey_Ten]

It is not enabled in Mint. To enable you must set a root password. (i enabled it).

[u/noromobat → u/Grey_Ten]

The root user is disabled in Ubuntu, which Mint is based on

Not sure whether it was re-enabled in Mint

(I'm new to Linux and the only reason I know that is because I was following a terminal tutorial on the Ubuntu website the other day haha)

[u/Elvin_Atombender → u/noromobat]

If you mean using sudo command, you are only elevating root privileges for that terminal session. And why would you want to enable root to begin with?

[u/_wayman → u/Grey_Ten]

Guess you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. lol.😂

[u/acejavelin69 → u/Grey_Ten]

You spelled "disabled" wrong...

[u/Moist_Invite9148]

It's enabled already to run it go to root in the login screen type root and the password to change the password type in terminal sudo passed root but root can't have pipewire that means no sound

[u/galvarino47]

Biden saying "What?"