I just noticed that my laptop is in a guest session

[fixit7]

I just noticed that my laptop is in a guest session. UM was installed by a friend.

Can I do things like partition a disk, etc. ??

[Philippe]

No, a guest session in Ubuntu MATE (or any Ubuntu-based system) is a temporary, restricted environment. It doesn’t have admin (sudo) rights, which means you cannot do system-level tasks like:

Partitioning disks

Installing or removing software

Modifying system settings

Also, any files you create or changes you make will be deleted once you log out.

If you need full access, you should log out and ask your friend for the credentials of an administrator account. Alternatively, if you can access a terminal, you can try running:

whoami

to check the current user, or

id

to see what groups you belong to.

Want help checking if you have admin access?

[fixit7]

Thanks Philippe.

~$ whoami
andy
~$

Someone here I think showed me how to disable a guest session.

[Philippe]

show return of:
id

[fixit7]

Thanks.

Looks like I am "good to go."