On Ubuntu, administration is handled by a set of specialized administrative tools, such as those for user management and printer configuration. To access the desktop-based administrative tools, you log in as a user who has administrative access. You created this user when you first installed Ubuntu. On the GNOME desktop System administrative tools are accessed from the System | Administration menu. Here you will find tools to set the time and date, manage users, configure printers, and install software. Users and Groups lets you create and modify users and groups. Printing lets you install and reconfigure printers. All tools provide easy-to-use and intuitive desktop interfaces. In the Administration menu, tools are identified by simple descriptive terms, whereas their actual names normally begin with terms such as admin or system-config. For example, the printer configuration tool is listed as Printing, but its actual name is system-config- printer, whereas Users and Groups is admin-users. You can separately invoke any tool by entering its name in a terminal window.
Ubuntu uses the GNOME administrative tools with KDE counterparts, administrative tools adapted from the Fedora distribution supported by Red Hat Linux, and independent tools developed by open source projects. PolicyKit is used for device authorizations, and the Synaptic Package Manager and the Ubuntu Software Center provide software management. The GNOME administrative tools are suffixed with the term admin, and the Fedora tools have the prefix system- config. The Printing administrative tool is Fedora’s system-config-printer. A Samba desktop tool is now available for Ubuntu, which is the Fedora system-config-samba tool. The Fedora system- config-lvm tool provides a simple and effective way to manage LVM file systems. In addition, Virus protection is handled by an entirely separate application, ClamAV.
Note: Many configuration tasks can also be handled on the command line, invoking programs directly. To use the command line, select the Terminal entry in the Applications | Accessories menu to open a terminal window with a command line prompt. You will need administrative authorization, so precede the application name with the sudo or the gksu command.
