I'm just setting up a debian system for the first time in a long while. (I'm typing this on my new debian system.) The initial user that I created is automatically in many important groups: cdrom floppy sudo audio dip video plugdev netdev bluetooth lpadmin scanner silly <== the user gets its own group When I do an adduser for "hugh", I get only two groups: users hugh Why was "silly" not put into group "users"? Why was "hugh" not put into all these empowering groups? Is there a magic shortcut to getting hugh added to all these groups? It seems that console users would want most or all of these groups. Is there a nice guide to which groups allow what actions? What's the normal way of adding users? I read debian documentation saying useradd(8) is low-level and that adduser(8) should be used instead. I don't see a way of telling adduser that the normal desktop user should be enrolled in the appropriate groups. I know how to add a user to a group, one at a time: adduser user group That seem tedious.