Ubuntu and settings and WiFi
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I've today had to hand out the root password of one of my computers. My wife had to borrow my laptop because hers broke. A moment ago she called me to work, saying "I need your password to connect school WiFi". And sent the below photo. And I'm like
.
Yes, the above is shown when trying to connect to a new WiFi network and you're using a normal (non-admin) account.
As luck would have it, the fix is simple:
How to enable wireless network for standard users?
how can I allow standard users to connect to wireless network without administrator password? It's simple question. I need any positive answer.
To make a wireless network available to all users we need to make shure that all users have the privilege to "Connect to wireless and ethernet networks". You can set this from Users and Groups from the package gnome-system-tools Install gnome-system-tools
(Or I could create the file in ...looks through the page... /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pkla myself, but then I'd have to go look up user groups, and
.)So, something as common as accessing WiFi networks needs extra permissions, which I can kind of understand. But then to grant those permissions I need to either know the underlying system or install an extra package for settings.
And in the meanwhile, I had to SMS the admin password. Meaning, I'll have to nuke and repave the machine before I can use it myself again.
As for the gnome-system-tools, that's actually already installed. Because I wanted the remaining battery capacity to be displayed in percent, instead of just the useless 3-state pictogram.
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@acrow Shure, welcome to the wonderful
of 
!
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Ubuntu is
, because it loves doing stuff their own 
ways.
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@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
I had to SMS the admin password. Meaning, I'll have to nuke and repave the machine before I can use it myself again.
Because you … don’t trust your wife?
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@Gurth said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
I had to SMS the admin password. Meaning, I'll have to nuke and repave the machine before I can use it myself again.
Because you … don’t trust your wife?
Trust her to not try to mess with my stuff on purpose? Sure.
Trust her not to click on "You have virus! Click here to scan and remove!" or something in a similar vein? No.
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And this is why 2022 is not the year of Linux on the desktop.
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That's nothing. Back in the dial-up days, I installed Ubuntu on a computer using a CD. Then I tried to get online. But the driver/program I needed to get online via dial-up wasn't included on the CD. To get it, you had to go online.
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@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@Gurth said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
I had to SMS the admin password. Meaning, I'll have to nuke and repave the machine before I can use it myself again.
Because you … don’t trust your wife?
Trust her to not try to mess with my stuff on purpose? Sure.
Trust her not to click on "You have virus! Click here to scan and remove!" or something in a similar vein? No.Do these work on Linux? Could be that they run on Wine, but even then they would quickly face some trouble with access rights...
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@slapout1 said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
That's nothing. Back in the dial-up days, I installed Ubuntu on a computer using a CD. Then I tried to get online. But the driver/program I needed to get online via dial-up wasn't included on the CD. To get it, you had to go online.
I did that one last month with Debian 11.
It wasn't their fault, but I had to bootstrap a network driver without a network driver to help.
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@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@Gurth said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
I had to SMS the admin password. Meaning, I'll have to nuke and repave the machine before I can use it myself again.
Because you … don’t trust your wife?
Trust her to not try to mess with my stuff on purpose? Sure.
Trust her not to click on "You have virus! Click here to scan and remove!" or something in a similar vein? No.That's a bit too paranoid methinks, unless she sticky-noted it to the computer for some reason. And then logged out and logged in as you, for some reason. And then went on an ad-clicking spree, for some reason. And then decided to call the number on the screen about Microsoft Sending Viruses, for some reason. And then managed to get the remote support app working, somehow. And then manage to get the scammer on the other line to continue the conversation after the word "Linux" was mentioned, for some reason. And then went to some shady website and download a virus, for some reason. And then manage to configure
winewell enough for the virus to run, for some reason. ... .. .....These dominos get really pretty the further down you go!
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@JBert said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@Gurth said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@acrow said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
I had to SMS the admin password. Meaning, I'll have to nuke and repave the machine before I can use it myself again.
Because you … don’t trust your wife?
Trust her to not try to mess with my stuff on purpose? Sure.
Trust her not to click on "You have virus! Click here to scan and remove!" or something in a similar vein? No.Do these work on Linux? Could be that they run on Wine, but even then they would quickly face some trouble with access rights...
With Chromebooks getting more common, malware for Linux does already exist. (There is money to be
madeswindled out of people, so of course there is.) And it's not like downloading and running an executable didn't work exactly as it does on Windows. It'll just ask for the admin credentials again.So, I made it a point to ask my wife whether connecting to that WiFi was the only time she'd been asked for the admin password. She says yes, so maybe we're clear after all.
ETA:
The browser's user-agent string makes it abundantly clear the laptop is running Linux, so the scammers can selectively serve a Linux version of their malware package. No need to assume that it's offering a Windows exe.
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@Atazhaia said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
Ubuntu is
, because it loves doing stuff their own ways.How is that different from the hundreds (thousands?) of other Linux distros?
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@CodeJunkie said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
@Atazhaia said in Ubuntu and settings and WiFi:
Ubuntu is
, because it loves doing stuff their own ways.How is that different from the hundreds (thousands?) of other Linux distros?
Popularity.
