How To: Open a root terminal in Ubuntu
June 10th, 2008
I was playing around with Ubuntu & installing a few stuff from the terminal. One problem that quickly became a pain in the rear is that, I had to `sudo` everytime and give a password whenever a command that required admin privileges had to be run. Since, I was installing a few stuff, almost all commands required admin rights. So, without much ado, here’s how to open a terminal with permanent root privileges.
- Press Alt+F2. The “Run Application” dialog will pop up.
- Type “gnome-terminal” in the dialog and press “Enter”. This will open a new terminal window without admin rights.
- Now, in the new terminal window, type “sudo gnome-terminal”. You will be asked for your password. Give your password and press “Enter”. A separate terminal window with root privileges will open now. This is immediately visible because the usual “$” prompt changes to a “#” prompt.
There you go, 🙂 three cool steps to have your terminal with admin rights. If you press “Ctrl+Shift+N” from this new terminal, it will open another terminal window, which also has root privileges.
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June 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
You can also do this:
1. Alt+F2
2. Type “sudo su”. Check the box: ‘run in terminal’
3. A new terminal opens and type your password in it.
Done
June 11th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
@traxen:
Yeah 🙂 that’s cool
June 19th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Another way is Alt + F2 and “gksudo gnome-terminal” 😉
June 19th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
@sathya:
Ah! yes. Didn’t think of that.
April 26th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I am running Ubuntu 9.04 and this operation does not work.
I get a failed message:
“Failed to contact the GConf daemon; exiting.”
June 1st, 2009 at 4:25 pm
You can download an application called root terminal from the add remove applications icon. app uses gksu and installs in the system tools section of the applications menu. Good Times!
August 22nd, 2011 at 7:29 pm
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September 30th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
thx .. 🙂