Comment 26 for bug 240437

Background: I originally experienced this problem with an installed version of Xubuntu Hardy (8.04). I established that the Live CD had the same bug. As I do not wish to change my LTS installation at present, I have since tried Live CDs for Jaunty (9.04) and Karmic (9.10) with similar results.

With Live CDs, the default user is "ubuntu" and sudo commands respond to an empty string as a password (""). Following a fresh boot into the Xubuntu Karmic Live CD I have now set a user password for "ubuntu" with the following results:

Use passwd command to change default ubuntu password from "" (null) to "123456789".

cat/etc/groups confirms user "ubuntu" is in groups "adm" (4) and admin(115).

ubuntu@ubuntu:/etc$ sudo /usr/share/system-tools-backends-2.0/scripts/SystemToolsBackends.pl
-m UsersConfig --platform ubuntu-8.04 -v; sudo /usr/sbin/system-tools-backends -nd
begin::Start of work report.
file_locate_tool_success::Found tool [uname].
file_run_pipe_success::Piping command [LC_ALL=C PATH=$PATH:/sbin:/usr/sbin /bin/uname -s 2>
/dev/null |] for reading.
file_locate_tool_success::Found tool [usermod].
file_locate_tool_success::Found tool [userdel].
file_locate_tool_success::Found tool [useradd].
file_locate_tool_success::Found tool [adduser].
file_locate_tool_success::Found tool [deluser].
file_locate_tool_success::Found tool [chfn].
file_locate_tool_failed::Couldn't find tool [pw].

^C
ubuntu@ubuntu:/etc$

As default user "ubuntu", created a new user "test" as detailed in post #24 above.
Entered password of "123456789" when requested.

No entry appears in Users Settings box.
home directory for "test" is created.

cat /etc/passwd now shows sixteen users, but new user "test" is not shown.
cat /etc/group now shows same nine groups:
(root, daemon, audio, nogroup, syslog, messagebus, avahi, haldaemon, ubuntu)

sudo capability again lost. Passwords of both "123456789" and "" (null) are now rejected with message "ubuntu is not in the sudoers file."