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I have found some solutions but what I want to do is I want to become a root user "permanently". When I restart computer I still want to stay as a root user. I don't want to use termanial everytime to become a root user. Is there any idea?

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marked as duplicate by minerz029, gertvdijk, Takkat, Mateo, Avinash Raj Dec 28 '13 at 13:03


@minerz029 I did what they say but I am still not a root user. After I write "su" from console I become a root user but I don't want this. –  hellzone Dec 27 '13 at 22:18
Are you sure? If you follow the steps, it should enable graphical root login, i.e. from the login screen you will login as root and be the root user. –  minerz029 Dec 27 '13 at 22:20
@minerz029 So I can't update my current user(call it hellzone) as root? –  hellzone Dec 27 '13 at 22:24
Please also read this: –  Takkat Dec 27 '13 at 22:27

2 Answers 2

up vote 0 down vote accepted

In Ubuntu 13.10 / 13.04 / 12.10 and Ubuntu 12.04, User defined login or GUI root login is disabled by default. You can enable the user defined login by modifying the lightdm configuration file. Once the manual login is enabled, then its easy to login as root in GUI.

To Enable Manual Login in Ubuntu 13.10 13.04 12.10 12.04

Open a Terminal run the following command, Issue the password for the user when prompted.

echo "greeter-show-manual-login=true" | sudo tee -a /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Now set / change the password for the root user in your machine.

To set / change the root password run the following command in the terminal and issue the password for the user, when prompted.

sudo passwd

Enter the password twice. After creating the password, restart the system.

Now you can find the manual login option in the login list. Select Login and type user name as root and provide the root password which you have created.

Hope this will be helpful for you!!!

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I strongly recommend you don't permanently stay as a root user. Is there any reason you need to do this? I believe you need to delete your actual user, but I am not really sure if Linux structure allow this. Instead of been root permanently, you can keep the regular configuration, protecting your system from any possible damage or attack. In any case, when you need administrative tasks and permissions, you just need to enter your system password when required and that's it!

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I don't want to use terminal thats why I want to become a root user. –  hellzone Dec 27 '13 at 22:27
Running as root will make no difference regarding how often you'll be using the terminal. All it means is that you'll never be asked for your password to install anything, nor to make important, irreversible and catastrophic changes to your system. And as significantly, neither will anything you run across on the internet. What you want to do is a very bad idea. It bypasses pretty much every security measure built into Linux. –  Marc Dec 28 '13 at 0:24
