Create a Non-Root User with sudo Privileges Add a Non-Root User On Ubuntu / Debian based systems, creating a non-root user with sudo privileges is quite straight forward.  First, we'll create our non-root user with the command adduser where you replace above with your actual name or username. In my case I would do adduser brian Enter a strong password for your user, then confirm the password. Enter the additional information if you like, though it's not required. Finally, accept the settings with 'Y'. Add the user to the sudo group To add our user to the sudo group we'll use the command: usermod -aG sudo Where, again, you'll replace with your name or username.  In my case it would be usermod -aG sudo brian Now, you can log out and log back in as your new non-root user.