Add a line for your username in the /etc/sudoers file, allowing you to sudo in Fedora

uh-oh!

Better to use: visudo

I'm curious why it's better to use visudo? Like I said, new to linux, wanting to learn what is good.

Visudo checks for correct syntax, so you can be sure your sudoers file will work:

root@kvirasim:14:39:0:/home/alanceil> visudo

[editing...]

>>> /etc/sudoers: syntax error near line 2

What now?

From the manpage:

visudo edits the sudoers file in a safe fashion, analogous to vipw(8). visudo locks the sudoers file against multiple simultaneous edits, provides basic sanity checks, and checks

for parse errors. If the sudoers file is currently being edited you will receive a message to try again later.

You should use visudo, or atleast substitute "$(echo whoami)" for 'loginname' ;-)

I'm sorry -- $(who am i | awk '{print $1}') would work better...

Use 'visudo' and nothing but 'visudo' (not 'awk', not 'echo', etc).

If you don't have visudo, install it; if you still can't access it, then (and only then) you might resort to hacks--or rebuild your computer from the ground up!

ok, well, no don't do that. sudo is an administrative tool, but that's what ubuntu has taught.. be root and do it all.

There is a reason why windows fails giving the user administrative rights, and why root is a different user in Linux, and other users have less rights (the monolithic hiracy)

visudo is good, but knowing your system is better.

I voted down not because the method was wrong, but the idea was wrong.

root is a design error

@koukos Sudo is not a wrong idea. Sudo has been around long before Ubuntu. Mac OS X, for example, has been using sudo since day one, further by disabling root entirely (as does Ubuntu). Most major distributions and Unix derivatives ship sudo. Just because Ubuntu has made sudo popular doesn't make it a problem. Sudo has many advantages over just plain 'su - root':

1) It logs the actions of who is performing the command.

2) You can enforce granular control over who has access to what command and what hosts.

3) It creates a mindset of using least privilege, and preventing root logins.

@maht I'll argue that with you. While the paradigm of an all-powerful user 'root', then everyone else is unfortunate, it's been addressed through the wheel group, sudo, and RBAC. Unix today is 100x better than it was 20 years ago. The root account now means more than it did.

For @refrax who submitted the command, as people have already mentioned, 'visudo' is the tool you want to use, so you can check syntax errors. If a tool exists for editing a configuration file, then the tool should be used. 'visudo' is it.