first create the file /etc/sudoers.d/sudo_secure_path with these contents

# sudo secure path configuration
Defaults	secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

then to set the correct permissions run

sudo chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/sudo_secure_path

or at your convenience the file and script to copy it and give the permissions is in the devuan-scripts repo under the sudo subdir https://github.com/eylles/devuan-scripts

You're welcome.

No way to find out, not been able to find a trail to follow.

And if Texstar (of all people) says he has no contact info, it seems to be a dead end.

Best,

A.

is this warranted behaviour or is it better to login as root user?

This is, it seems, a matter of some opinion and debate. I'm of the opinion that it's your system and you should use it in the way that works for you, cognizant of the risks you take by doing so. Too many people who speak of open source and "freedom" have far too rigid opinions of how things ought to be done.

I hope that's not a suggestion that all root tasks should be done through the command line only. I want my GUI file browser and text editor with a mouse cursor, right-click, clipboard, and tabs. I'd have given up on Linux long ago if I had to do all the debugging and customization exclusively in the CLI.

thanks.

coming back to the original quesit:

when i use ssh , feel more comfortable to login via user, and proceed from there with "sudo" when needed; rather than as root; is this warranted behaviour or is it better to login as root user?

whenever i use root, have feeling things could break more easily, maybe from experience.

thanks.thanks.

As far as the changes to sudo, what systems would make /usr/local/ writeable for a non-root user? That seems silly.

my /usr/local/{bin,sbin} are owned by group staff, and group has write permission.

Quite so ...

Yes, I agree.

It seems that there was a fire/accident that took down the servers and a new forum had to be set up.
Apparently some stuff was lost and I cannot log-in or recover my PW.
Will try again when I have time.

Don't understand ...
No reliable off-site back-ups? 8^°

In any case, Texstar [packager/main dev] posted this earlier this year.
Seems he does not have contact information for one of his forum's senior admins. (?)
Go figure ...

Best,

A.

As far as the changes to sudo, what systems would make /usr/local/ writeable for a non-root user? That seems silly.

@Altoid that link was a blast from the past, I remember when Old Polack wrote it, PCLOS was really popular at the time and there had been a steady influx of new users posting "where's muh sudo?". OP was a brilliant guy, don't know if he's still around but I learned a lot from him.

Right, thanks for that.

That is how I have it set up.

Best,

A.

If you have a root account, you can su to root to do admin tasks. If you don't have a root account, you need to use sudo to do admin tasks, and in that case, you're probably a member of the sudo group and can do anything with it.

The original intent of sudo was to allow fine-grained permissions for certain users or groups to do a few specific admin tasks rather than give them total root access.

What you should not do is log into a desktop session as root.

What I see is that I do not have to give the full path to run the command with sudo, but maybe that's because I have the full path to the command already in my /etc/sudoers.d/usercommands. So for me, there's no change. Tested this in freia with the version of sudo mentioned above.