su means super user, it's a command in linux that logs you into what is basically the admin. you want that to tweak the system in any way (or in my case, setting a different timezone? i guess debian wants it that way.)

sudo means super user do, another linux command that performs whatever you write after it as the previously stated super user without having to log into it. it's convenient.

i tried running sudo after installing debian for the first time and i got this

aei is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

the solution

the two biggest modern desktop environment (GNOME and KDE) has a way to make any user an admin.

for KDE i can't find a tutorial online but it's a similar process, settings app > "users" > select your user > there's an "account type" dropdown. you can pick admin and enter the prompted root password.

if you use something else, i'm not sure how to do it graphically but it's probably similar. anyways i wanna learn so here's the terminal way.

log into the root user.

su

now two paths:

• add your user to the sudo group
• add your user to the sudoers file

add to the group with usermod, it manages users and groups on linux.

• -a means it wont kick the user out from other groups not listed in the command.
• -G is the group name you want to add the user to.

most cases you can use:

usermod -a -G sudo aei

for fedora and co. (redhat systems), they call it wheel.

usermod -a -G wheel aei

or you can add the user to the sudoers file

open the sudoers file with a text editor.

visudo is a command that just opens nano, a text editor.

the difference is that visudo adds safety percautions on top of the text editor to prevent you from messing up the file too much.

visudo /etc/sudoers

there will be a silly line with "user privilege specification" in it, with root or admin or whatever it's called for you over there.

you can add your username below the root user with all the the privileges you could possibly ask for

aei     ALL=(ALL:ALL)  ALL

save and exit the text editor, then exit the root user by just typing "exit".

is it ALL=(ALL:ALL) or ALL=(ALL) ?

it's more linux group privilege shenanigans, but both would work.

i'm still trying to get it

"This incident will be reported." to where?