Re: [newbie] Cannot login as root (not a passwd issue)
Jochen Schulz wrote:
Fernando Cacciola:
I'm new to debian (knoppix 3.8.1 on HDD) and to linux in general.
Welcome. :-)
So far everything works like a charm, except for one thing, the system
is configured to disallow root login...
Where? You are trying to login as root via your display manager
(graphical login prompt like kdm or gdm)? As others have said, that is a
bad idea and there is no reason to ever do that.
In kdm, but I know is dangerous so I'll forget about it...
I know that suing is inherently more secure but for some tasks I rather
login straight as root.
Then at least use the console. You'll want to become familiar with it
anyway.
Indeed.. Coming from Windows (ya, shame me) it takes some time to get
used to it but I keep being constantly amazed at how powerful the
console is.
I modified the file apt.d/login (or something like that), commenting out
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Please try to be concise. It's hard to help somebody if you have to
guess a lot.
>
OK
You can allow root logins via your display manager by editing it's
configuration file or some GUI configuration tool. For gdm it is
gdm-config, I think. You then most probably have to restart your
X-Session to use the new settings (e.g. via Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to make
sure X is completely restarted).
Ok, I guess I should figure that out but as I dropped the idea I rather
mess with something usefull :-)
But again, I see no reason to do that. AFAIK every Gnome or KDE system
configuration tool will use something like gksu or a builtin method to
gain root privileges when needed.
Well, my first experience with Linux was with a Gentoo box where I just
ended up being the root user, without even knowing what that meant(that
was the default setup and I just leaved it as is); so I had no previous
experience as a "normal user".
The first thing that shocked me was that I couldn't make a directory via
Konqueror except inside my home dir (is hard to "undumb" oneself from a
MS universe ;).
But OK, I suppose you just don't use Konqueror to do that :-)
Also, it took me some time to get used to "sudo" pretty much any scrpit
(as they normally do something that require root privileges); but that's
OK too.
So OK, I'll repeat to myself "I don't ever need to login as root, ever" :-)
P.S: The bootlog indicates a number of varying failures which may or
maynot be important.. the system seems to work well AFAICT but I haven't
yet tried, say, printing, etc... should I post to log here to let you
folks analyze it, or should I just ingore it until I can make any sense
out of it?
If it is just some modules not being loaded, that's probably fine. There
is some hardware detection going on and of course not every possible
device is found. You can also edit /etc/default/bootlogd and set
BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=Yes and look at /var/log/boot. That gives you a little
more time to read all those messages. If you think, there is still
something suspicious, you're welcome to ask here.
OK, I'll read it in detail so see if there is anything suspicious,
P.S.: To what debian does knoopix 3.8.1 installed on hd corresponds to?
Knoppix is always a mixture of stable, testing and unstable. You can
only tell that for each single package. Some of them are patched
versions, which you will not find in Debian, I suppose. You can still
try to make it a real Debian installation by adjusting your sources.list
and sticking to one of the distributions (preferably stable). Although
that may lead to problems, since Knoppix' package versions may be more
recent than the ones from sarge.
J.
Hmm, so I suppose I can't just "upgrade" to the recent Sarge right? As
if I had, say Woody or so.
Thanks
Fernando Cacciola
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