login manager

[locutus]

I can't find the login manager; I looked in the system settings and it's not there. In the System folder is something called Login Window Preferences, I click that and am asked for the root password, then nothing happens.

When I installed Mint I set it up to log in automatically. Now I want it to ask for a user name, which you can also select the session type. I have installed the xfce desktop and would like to try it out but I need the ability to select it, and later to select to go back to KDE.

Any ideas?

[scorp123]

In the System folder is something called Login Window Preferences, I click that and am asked for the root password,

Ahem no, you get asked for your own password. Can you please open a terminal and enter this command:

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sudo gdmsetup

When it asks for a password then this should be your own password. Check the terminal for any error messages you might be getting and post them here.

[locutus]

The terminal says:

Failed to connect to socket, sleep 1 second and retry
Trying failed command again. Try 2 of 5.
...
[after 5 tries]
Could not access GDM configuration file.
[back to command prompt]

For what it's worth, I checked Synaptic, there is no gdmsetup available to install. GDM is installed though.

[scorp123]

What does this command return?

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which gdmsetup

And this one?

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ls -al /etc/gdm/

gdmsetup is part of package gdm ... If you have gdm, you should also have gdmsetup ...

[locutus]

which gdmsetup result:
/usr/sbin/gdmsetup

ls -al .etc/gdm result:
total 124
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 2006-12-27 00:36 .
drwxr-xr-x 114 root root 8192 2007-01-07 14:52 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 28240 2006-12-13 16:49 factory-gdm.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 28240 2006-10-20 19:36 gdm.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 231 2006-11-29 12:19 gdm.conf-custom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 164 2006-11-29 12:17 gdm.conf-custom.orig
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1564 2006-10-20 19:36 gdmprefetchlist
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-12-27 00:36 Init
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10739 2006-10-20 19:35 locale.conf
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-12-27 00:36 modules
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-01-07 14:49 PostLogin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-12-27 00:36 PostSession
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-12-27 00:36 PreSession
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4003 2006-10-20 19:36 XKeepsCrashing
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6534 2006-10-20 19:36 Xsession

[locutus]

I re-installed gdm and rebooted, same result.

I tried running /usr/sbin/gdmsetup and got the count to 5 error again.

[scorp123]

And what happens if you try this command:

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gksu gdmsetup

If this doesn't help, you may try to force a reconfiguration:

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dpkg-reconfigure gdm

[locutus]

I apparently have no root password set up. I've run across this before with other distros but I can't remember how to set up root user & password. (this is necessary because the reconfigure command you asked me to do requires it; my own password and sudo won't do). I entered User Management and tried to add root user there (using administrator mode) but it wouldn't accept it. Said "sorry already..." and the rest was cut off.

So, please remind me how to set up a root password and then I'll try your terminal command.

[scorp123]

I apparently have no root password set up.

Yeah right I already told you: You have to use your own password (it's a security measure present on Ubuntu and Ubuntu-derived distros such as Mint; but also on Mac OS X: direct access to root is blocked; the first user on the system must use his own password!). And if there were no root account your system wouldn't even boot

I've run across this before with other distros but I can't remember how to set up root user & password.

Good! You'd probably only mess up your system.

(this is necessary because the reconfigure command you asked me to do requires it; my own password and sudo won't do)

Are you sure you're using the correct password?

. I entered User Management and tried to add root user there (using administrator mode) but it wouldn't accept it.

Sorry, but this is soooo funny Again: Your system wouldn't even boot if there were no root user!! So better not touch this!

Use your own password! e.g. when using sudo <== you become root, but you have to use your own password!

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sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm

[locutus]

Glad I can brighten your day! ;~)

Anyway, when I ran the command the first time it wanted me to enter a password, which I did and it said invalid password. That is why I wanted to add root.

Today it accepted it (?) and everything now works. I tried xfce, not impressed, but at least it worked. I tried it on Mepis and got nothing. No menus, nothing. Just a blank green screen and no way to log out. Asking in their forums they said xfce can break the system and to avoid it.

[scorp123]

Glad I can brighten your day! ;~)

Glad you didn't get me wrong.

Today it accepted it (?) and everything now works

You probably just mistyped it before. Can happen.

no way to log out.

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace ... this kills the current GUI session and should take you back to the login manager.

[clem]

Just a quick precision on the root account.

- There is a root account.
- It has a root password.
- You don't know that password and nobody does (it's set randomly during the install)
- The first user account you create is a sudoer. This means he can run anything "as root" without "being root" by just prefixing his commands with "sudo ".

So to be precise the root account is not blocked as such, but the OS tends to push you to use sudo instead of using the root account itself. Good practice that's all.

The reason behind this is that it's more easy to forget that you're root and run normal user stuff under the root account, than to forget not to type sudo ... since typing sudo is a bit of a pain

Of course, if you want to do things the stupid way... or if you need to access some env stuff and can't do it through sudo, you can become root :

sudo su -

or even set a new root password:

sudo passwd root

and then become root:

su -
(then root password).

Clem