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I have taken over the system administration on an ubuntu system from someone else. I had an normal user account on this system before, that I am still using. The previous admin made me sudoer, so in principle I have almost all priviledges I need to administrate that computer. However, as Ubuntu by default sets the first user created during installation as the super user (i.e. the previous sysadmin), I am facing the problem that for specific tasks I am still asked for the previous admin's password, particularly when being logged in on the GUI with my account and accessings things like GUI-based printer or user administration, update management etc..

One solution I thought about already was to just use my sudoer priviliges to change the password of the previous sysadmin (who does not need his account anymore). However, I would find it much more elegant just to make my account the main system administrator. Is there a way to do this post installation?

Thanks in advance for help on this!

hcr
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There is a difference in Ubuntu to granting you (full) admin privileges by creating an unrestricted entry in /etc/sudoers (or an sudoers.d include) for your regular user account, or by adding your user account to the sudo group.

The first only allows you to elevate your privileges from the command line with sudo.

The later also grants administrator privileges elsewhere in addition to sudo, for example in polkit enforced policies in graphical applications.

By default the Ubuntu installer makes the first user account created at install time a member of that sudo group and your account probably isn't, which is most likely what makes the previous administrators account more privileged than yours.

Edit the group memberships, add your user to the sudo group and remove the previous administrators and you should be golden.

HBruijn
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