change root user / accounts

die.boer — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 19:46:26 GMT

so in my scenario , i had my 1 account setup (root) , but my kids was getting more and more on my pc and doing whatever they do
so i was starting to get worried that they could install/delete stuff ,cause login password is the same as root password on admin account.
PS: i did 1st create 2 new user accounts for them (standard user) , but then found everything they are used to is gone ( they're used to log into my account with everything set up)
so what i did it is create another sysadmin account and then made my usual account standard ,so they can log into my usual account and everything seems like they used to by now, but they cant "change" anything.
if any1 find them self's in the same situation , here are the steps:

basically it goes like this
-Keep your current account (xxx) exactly as it is.
-Create a new account called sysadmin (or similar) and add it to sudo.
-Remove xxx from the sudo group.

like this :
Create the new admin account

Code:

sudo adduser sysadmin

You'll be asked to set a password for sysadmin.

Add sysadmin to the sudo group

Code:

sudo usermod -aG sudo sysadmin

.

Test the new account
Before removing xxx from sudo, log out and log into sysadmin.
Open a terminal and run:

Code:

sudo whoami

It should return:
root
If it does, you're good.

Remove xxx from the sudo group
Log back into sysadmin (important!), then run:

Code:

sudo deluser xxx sudo

Verify:

Code:

groups xxx

You should no longer see sudo in the list.

Test xxx
Log back into your normal xxx account and try:

Code:

sudo apt update

You should get:
xxx is not in the sudoers file. ( or in my case sudo: I'm sorry xxx. I'm afraid I can't do that)

and that's that ...

IMPORTANT :
Whenever you need to do admin tasks

Code:

su - sysadmin

hope this helps someone with kiddies on their PC

PS : if there is an alternative way , i'd love to hear (read) it

KDE Desktop Zoom feature is much too poorly documented and confusing

stevecoh1 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 17:33:46 GMT

This is an issue that I have solved, and not a request for help.

My point in raising this issue is that I think the obscurity and lack of documentation of this feature, which can drive users like me a little crazy, needs to be addressed.

Three days ago, I was working at my computer, a Lenovo Thinkpad P16 Gen 2, with a Nvidia RTX3500 GPU and an external BENQ monitor, running Kubuntu 24.04.4 LTS.. As I was typing, my screen zoomed in to a resolution that was too big for my screen causing everything to appear fuzzy and not fit on either screen. Moving the mouse moved the cursor as expected but also moved the display on the screen in the opposite direction. Very disconcerting behavior.

To fix this, I jumped down many wrong rabbit-holes that were unrelated to the problem.

My first recourse was to reboot. This did nothing.
Then, since I occasionally experience glitches with my GPU, my next step was to uninstall and reinstall my NVidia drivers. I tried three different ones, also the non-nvidia Nouveau driver. None of that fixed anything.
I tried googling the problem. Good luck with that if you don't know the name of this feature. Anything with "zoom" in it will send you to pages about the Remote meeting app of that name.
I tried getting help from some of the Ubuntu and Stack Exchange sites.
Some of the sites mentioned the "Meta" key. But what is that? I guessed wrong and the suggested Meta + - combination didn't work for me.
I even took the time to write an Ubuntu bug report. Since retracted.

Anyway I was eventually pointed here at the KDE Accessibility/Plasma page where I found this

Activating Visual Aids

Plasma desktop effects contain several accessibility-oriented features, including full-screen zoom, color inversion and assistance locating the mouse pointer.

Settings for these features can be found in System settings under Accessibility. Full-Screen Magnification

Meta++ and Meta+- zooms in and out, respectively.

The scale factor and mouse pointer tracking can be adjusted in the system settings. For a fixed-sized zoom window, use the "Magnifier" effect rather than the "Zoom" effect.

Again with the Meta key. Maybe I ought to really dig and find where my "Meta" key is. More googling, more confusion until I eventually tried the right one. Voila! Back to sanity after two days of hell trying to use the computer in this state.

----------------------------------------------------------

The reason I bring this up is that this feature is VERY poorly documented. Many helpful readers of the help sites tried to tell me to access the System Settings app --> Accessibility page but there's nothing there about this, at least not in 24.04. The very terms are obscure.
What does

'For a fixed-sized zoom window, use the "Magnifier" effect rather than the "Zoom" effect.'

mean? What and where are these effects

For every vision impaired person who needs these features, there might be 10 other persons who might inadvertently press the magic keystroke and discombobulate their screen. And good luck to them finding the way out. I suppose for vision-impaired people, it might make sense for this feature to persist across reboots, but that is not intuitive to people who have never heard of the feature.

This feature should be better documented and there should be a way to Enable/Disable it from System Settings App!

Hopefully some Kubuntu developer will see this.

Kubuntu Forums - Current Supported Releases

change root user / accounts

KDE Desktop Zoom feature is much too poorly documented and confusing