Debian is a bit different from Ubuntu and that is the reason I like it. Debian is much more focused for technically advanced people and, for example, has hibernation enabled by default, which contrasts with Ubuntu that makes it difficult to use hibernation, and there are many other differences in Debian that I prefer.
One thing with Debian is that sudo is not set up by default for the first user account and it's necessary to undertake a few steps to set it up. sudo is installed so all you have to do is add your user account to the configuration. This also underlines that under Debian 10, /sbin is excluded from the standard user's path in a terminal window and many commands will not work unless they are prefixed with the full path, something I have not yet got to a full understanding of the rationale for. When you go into a virtual terminal, that limitation is removed and it's hard to know why the restrictions have been put into the terminal window running under the desktop environment, when Debian 9 did not have those issues.
Anyway the steps to set up sudo are pretty straightforward:
- Use the su command to enter superuser mode in a terminal shell
- Install sudo if not already installed: apt install sudo
- Run the adduser command to add your user account to the sudo group: /sbin/adduser <username> sudo
- Log out and then log back in again
