Why does Ubuntu force users to create a password upon installation?

Solution 1:

Perhaps the real question should be why is it that Windows or Mac OS X (if that's actually the case, never used it) don't require you to have and use passwords.

You will probably find once you have set your system set up to your satisfaction that the amount of time you have to enter your password decreases substantially, I've been running the development version for months and still only use the password once or twice a day.

The password is there for a reason - so that people accessing your system when you are not aware being unable to damage it.

If you find that you are using it a lot in a terminal run

sudo -i

do what you need to and then exit.

Read up on root and sudo - it's there and won't be going anywhere.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

At the end of the day Linux of any sort is not Windows nor Mac.

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

Solution 2:

Thanks for asking a straight question, the answer is "Because it's more secure".

Any security measure will have at least a small "annoyance" factor.

"You must know your password to install software in Ubuntu. This is a security feature of Ubuntu, and other Linux distributions."

This prevents unauthorized people from messing the system's configuration, it's also a "safety net" for you to confirm that you actually want to do changes to the configuration.

It may be argued that if you know nobody is going to use your computer anyway, then you don't need a password, but the OS has no way of knowing that. Ubuntu is conservative in that respect in asking you to always have a password, unlike other systems that may allow you to "shoot yourself in the foot".

By the way, I'll take your word for Mac OS's behavior, but really I don't remember it being entirely passwordless; it always asks me for a password when upgrading and sometimes when installing software.

The workaround I suggest is for you to set a very short and easy password.

Solution 3:

You're right that OS X doesn't force you to make a password. But this is actually a flaw. Or if you want to say it nicely, a "compromise" between usability and functionality. Without a password in OS X, you cannot ever use the sudo command. Now you say, I never use the Terminal to do stuff, so who cares? Well, next time you try to install an app that needs certain privileges, you'll find you can't install it and that you have to make a password first.

In fact, if you look in the Mac forums, you'll find a variety of issues for people that didn't set a password. For example, you'll have trouble connecting to Windows shares.

Basically scenarios where some form of authentication is needed are all potentially areas where you will run into trouble. Consider this person who changed their password to blank to make their life "easier" and found out that Filevault does not like that! (they got locked out)

As for Windows, which I've long been unfamiliar with since Windows 98, despite what you say, a quick Googling suggests having no password (or more precisely, a "blank" password) is not quite the normal state of matters.

Similar to the situation with OS X, you'll find you need to do some fiddling to get some things to work. According to Microsoft,"this behavior is by design... to improve system security".

I'm sure other people will more than adequately explain why Ubuntu requires a password. My point in my answer is that Apple and Microsoft should require a non-blank password. You're going to need it for full functionality, and allowing users to set the password to blank is just asking for trouble.

Solution 4:

Every time I've installed OS X, I've been asked to create a password for my account. Granted, I've never thought of not creating a password.

There are ways to dramatically reduce the number of times you are asked for a password. As someone has already mentioned, read up on the sudo command. You can configure it so it won't ask for a password when you need to do something that requires root privileges.

You can also easily configure your system to avoid asking for your password when it boots up.

You could also just run as root all the time, but that would be very much a mistake.

Passwords aren't security perfection. But, I'd certainly use one, if nothing else to protect my machine from prowling and/or malicious passers-by.