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I have added a user in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, but that user is setup only as "standard". I also have a user with full administrative rights (which I presume I will use to make any access rights changes).

How do I change my "standard" user to admin in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS?

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See the question here . Not the answer but the question instead. –  NikTh Aug 30 '13 at 22:52
I found this link as useful: superuser.com/questions/196848/… –  Saurav Kumar Aug 30 '13 at 23:00
@SauravKumar - I would have just duped it to that, but you can't dupe a question to another site. I bountied to reward what I find to be the most correct answer to that question and mention it in my answer here. –  hbdgaf Aug 30 '13 at 23:03

2 Answers 2

Terminal Method

Open a terminal with CTRL+ATL+T keys combo and

Bare minimum you need to issue the following command:

sudo usermod -a -G sudo USERNAME

Replace USERNAME with the username of the user you want to promote.

sudo will ask for the password of the already existing administrator.

On my particular system, I am a member of the following groups:

usermod -a -G adm,cdrom,sudo,dip,plugdev,lpadmin,sambashare USERNAME

Mostly a copy paste from a question I bountied on SuperUser here.

If you upvote this answer, please go upvote that one. It deserves it, as it is more correct than the more heavily upvoted and accepted answer.

GUI Method

Login from the user who is already administrator, then click on Dash (Ubuntu icon up left) write user and click on User Accounts

enter image description here

Then unlock by clicking the appropriate button and giving the administrator's password.

enter image description here

Last, click on the user you want to promote and change from Standard to Administrator.

enter image description here

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It's identical to the poor, but accepted answer. –  hbdgaf Aug 30 '13 at 22:56
@Sparhawk - It's less correct, because it doesn't mirror the default administrative user identically. It also uses a utility not specifically for the task at hand. usermod is specifically for modify users. The fact that useradd will do it is functional, but kludgy. Like logging in as root instead of using sudoers properly. –  hbdgaf Aug 30 '13 at 23:06
@Sparhawk - I don't see an alias. I see "substitute your username here". If you want to talk about it, let's go to chat instead of cluttering up the comments. –  hbdgaf Aug 30 '13 at 23:14
I think it's just a difference of opinion, so probably not much more to say. (For the record I was making an analogy with aliases.) Can I just ask, though, did you check to see what groups the test-user is added to in the GUI method? (As per my other comments, I run Kubuntu, so cannot check the Unity method.) –  Sparhawk Aug 31 '13 at 0:34
@Sparhawk I did not. But if it isn't all the default groups for the original admin user, it should be reported as a bug, not validate a sub-par answer. –  hbdgaf Aug 31 '13 at 2:24

Open a terminal, then add your username to the sudo group with

sudo adduser [yourusername] sudo

From the man page for adduser:

   Add an existing user to an existing group
       If called with two non-option arguments, adduser will add an existing user to an existing group.
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Not as correct as it could be. Using adduser to change a user's group membership is clunky and bad. Usermod is cleaner, and the other answer includes other groups that are default for the admin user on a default Ubuntu desktop install. –  hbdgaf Aug 30 '13 at 22:54
The adduser command will add a new user. It will not promote an existing user to administrator. !! –  NikTh Aug 30 '13 at 22:54
@NikTh Are you sure? I'm fairly sure I've used this before on an existing user and it worked. –  Sparhawk Aug 30 '13 at 22:55
@NikTh - If you run adduser on an existing user, it will modify the user. It works, but it's clunky and shows a google-paste instead of understanding several shell utilities. –  hbdgaf Aug 30 '13 at 22:55
@hbdgaf 1) If the question asked for admin rights, isn't that equivalent to being added to sudo by definition? The other groups seem like they are not what has been asked for. 2) That's a bit harsh accusing me of "google-paste", since you admitted you copy-pasted anyway. And your -1 is also harsh, since it clearly does work. –  Sparhawk Aug 30 '13 at 22:59

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