This is a response to a comment about Ubuntu that is on this blog entry. The person was having trouble setting a root password. This is really simple, but not really needed for almost everything since Ubuntu gives your user sudo privileges, which allow you to do anything root can. You simple prefix the command with ‘sudo’ and type in YOUR password. However, if you absolutely MUST log in as root, just do this to set a root password:

brian@brian-lt:~$ sudo passwd root
Password:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

This sets the root password and you can now log in as root like this:

su -