How To: Open a root terminal in Ubuntu
June 10th, 2008
I was playing around with Ubuntu & installing a few stuff from the terminal. One problem that quickly became a pain in the rear is that, I had to `sudo` everytime and give a password whenever a command that required admin privileges had to be run. Since, I was installing a few stuff, almost all commands required admin rights. So, without much ado, here’s how to open a terminal with permanent root privileges.
- Press Alt+F2. The “Run Application” dialog will pop up.
- Type “gnome-terminal” in the dialog and press “Enter”. This will open a new terminal window without admin rights.
- Now, in the new terminal window, type “sudo gnome-terminal”. You will be asked for your password. Give your password and press “Enter”. A separate terminal window with root privileges will open now. This is immediately visible because the usual “$” prompt changes to a “#” prompt.
There you go,
three cool steps to have your terminal with admin rights. If you press “Ctrl+Shift+N” from this new terminal, it will open another terminal window, which also has root privileges.

June 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
You can also do this:
1. Alt+F2
2. Type “sudo su”. Check the box: ‘run in terminal’
3. A new terminal opens and type your password in it.
Done
June 11th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
@traxen:
that’s cool
Yeah
June 19th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Another way is Alt + F2 and “gksudo gnome-terminal”
June 19th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
@sathya:
Ah! yes. Didn’t think of that.
April 26th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I am running Ubuntu 9.04 and this operation does not work.
I get a failed message:
“Failed to contact the GConf daemon; exiting.”
June 1st, 2009 at 4:25 pm
You can download an application called root terminal from the add remove applications icon. app uses gksu and installs in the system tools section of the applications menu. Good Times!