how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

ofvergara · 2020-09-19 03:18:49

hello devuan team.

I have finished evaluating virage 3.1 and I liked it very much (since it also allows the topic at hand straight away). It's now my candidate to replace my good old SLED11-sp4 in the near future.

However, I wanted to re-evaluate and give another chance to the original devuan. I have now installed ascii 2.1 x86-64 from netInstall with mate desktop environment in virtualBox.

I have found these issues:

#1 i want to remove wicd and install network manager (I achieved this in virage easily with the guide found in a post in the "freedom hacks" forum), however in 'mate', after i click "system >> administration >> synaptic package manager" and the password pop-up window appears, it doesn't accept neither the root password nor the normal user password, which is very weird.

#2 i can't use root at logon screen and then use the root gui desktop environment to make system modifications (like opensuse or virage). when i try root and root's password at this logon screen, it doesn't move forward. only my local user account works to go into the desktop environment. So, problem #1 can be solved if i have access to the root gui D-E.

#3 when i go into "mate terminal" and enter "su" and "su -", and then i enter the root password, the root password doesn't work either. it displays "authentication failure". am i doing something wrong?

I tried a hint that i read in another post in this forum to achieve root at login, yet that option did not work unfortunately.

what commands do i need to enter to make this work?
At the main 'mate' login screen I don't see any options to click and modify settings, only the username/password boxes. that's it.

have into account that i am not CLI savvy, I'm mostly a point-and-click user using linux consistently for 10 years.

i am going to try with i386 ascii netInstall instead of x86-64 to try to replicate the issues I have, and see where the problem lies.

thanks a lot guys for your input.
cheers.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-09-19 07:44:51

ofvergara wrote:

when i go into "mate terminal" and enter "su" and "su -", and then i enter the root password, the root password doesn't work either. it displays "authentication failure". am i doing something wrong?

Can you login as root at the console (TTY)? Are you sure the keyboard is configured correctly so as to account for any special characters in the root password?

I'm not helping you log into the graphical desktop as root because that's a stupid thing to do

And why have you not tried the current stable release? ASCII is now Devuan oldstable.

chris2be8 · 2020-09-19 16:09:46

Try sudo -i in a terminal window. Hopefully that should ask for your user password then take you into a root shell. Then you can use passwd root to change the root password (it sounds as if it's not what you think it is).

Chris

ofvergara · 2020-09-20 04:29:31

hello chris2be8 & HOaS,
I have installed ascii i386 for comparison purposes and the same issues occurred. Synaptic doesn't accept my root password. I made sure this time that no strange characters were used.

i tried sudo -i in mate terminal and entered my password (not root's pw). then i received this message:

omar is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

I will try beowulf netInstall tomorrow to see what happens, although I would have.preferred for beowulf to have the graphical installation screen like ascii does.
i know because of another thread in the forum that beowulf doesn't provide a graphical installation screen. Also the minor pulse audio problem in the release notes.

Can you login as root at the console (TTY)?

How do i achieve this virtualbox? since virtualbox provides desktop integration, unfortunately my keyboard is not fully captured by the guest OS and if I press a key combination, it applies it to the host OS. My mouse can be captured, though.

I know that in SLED11sp4 & opensuse, i can go to a full screen terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+f1-6, and then go back to normal graphic screen with ctrl+alt+f7

I'm not helping you log into the graphical desktop as root because that's a stupid thing to do

i have been able to enter root gui in both SLED11sp4 & opensuse for all these years without doing anything special, it's just available right after first install.
probably devuan is able to do it as well somehow. if you know how, please send me a private message. i will really appreciate it since it's easier for me to handle system modifications this way. also, i'm the only one using this laptop, i'm sure i won't be messing up my own computer (i make manual monthly data back-ups in case my hard disk dies or something bad happens).

Thank you guys for helping out. Will share more updates after I install beowulf.

Cheers,
Omar

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-09-20 11:49:24

ofvergara wrote:

i tried sudo -i in mate terminal and entered my password (not root's pw). then i received this message:
omar is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

See https://wiki.debian.org/sudo

ofvergara wrote:

Can you login as root at the console (TTY)?
How do i achieve this virtualbox?

Once you have configured sudo use

sudo chvt 3

HevyDevy · 2020-09-20 12:37:46

you can also add the user to sudo like so as root.

# gpasswd -a omar sudo

Last edited by HevyDevy (2020-09-20 12:38:02)

ofvergara · 2020-09-21 02:38:26

Thanks guys for your hints. I deleted ascii and then installed beowulf i386 netInstall with mate desktop.
However, i kept having the same problem.

Apparently my username is not being added to the sudo group upon installation; and still doesn't accept my very simple root password neither in the terminal nor the pop-up message after clicking system>administration>synaptic.
This is very strange.

See https://wiki.debian.org/sudo

Thank you. I read the document. however i kept having problems in the terminal. Please read below:

$ groups
omar cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev netdev bluetooth lpadmin scanner

$ sudo adduser omar sudo
[sudo] password for omar:
omar is not in the sudoers file. The incident will be reported.

$ sudo chvt 3
[sudo] password for omar:
omar is not in the sudoers file. The incident will be reported.

$ su  (or)  su -
Password:
su: Authentication failure

$ gpasswd -a omar sudo
gpasswd: Permission denied.

For the command above from HevyDevy, since it's a pound sign "#", means root, but i can't access root. my root password is rejected (authentication failure).

One of the suggestions I found in the page sent by HoaS, is to install again and then assign no password to root, so the first user created get sudo powers.

I will reinstall and then try this approach. Will share more news tomorrow.
Cheers devuan team

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-09-21 15:49:09

Hmm, yes, sorry OP — you can't add your user to the sudo group if you can't use su

Rather than re-installing you can boot to a root shell by editing the bootloader: press either <tab> or <e> with the Devuan entry highlighted then replace ro with rw and add init=/bin/bash to the end of the line that starts with "linux"; use either <return> or <ctrl>+<x> to boot the modified entry.

I'm pretty sure your problem is due to the installer using a different keymap than your graphical desktop, this would cause you to enter the "wrong" password during installation.

ofvergara · 2020-09-22 04:17:36

Hello HoaS,
your approach was too advanced for me, so i went ahead and re-installed beowulf; it was easier for me that way, and it worked. Sudo is now working.

I am now able to access synaptic and make minor system modifications [like removing wicd, installing network manager and later editing network interfaces using pluma (mate's gedit)].
Question: Is it possible to install network manager right at installation and at the same time remove wicd?

Now I'm trying to emulate my good old & reliable gnome 2.28 with the mate desktop, and then do a side-by-side comparison and taking notes on what to do to achieve this.
One advantage of installing beowulf this way is that you install the programs you need without having too much initial bloat.

Virage is a wonderful derivative with xfce, however, I am a big fan of gnome 2.28 for many years (gnome3 and up are awful) and mate is doing a superb attempt of preserving the look-and-feel of a proper desktop environment (I remember back in the Novell days with SLED10 that they performed usability surveys with several desktop environments and the most preferred one by the user surveyed was gnome 2.28, that is the reason it was default in that distribution since until gnome decided to update for the worse).

Suse also created a system tool called yast, in which it contains all system settings able to be modified by root with a nice graphical interface.
Does devuan offer a similar tool like this? (see it here: https://yast.opensuse.org/)

I want to thank everybody for your kind assistance, I'll keep asking more questions on this forum.
Cheers.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-09-22 20:23:13

ofvergara wrote:

Is it possible to install network manager right at installation and at the same time remove wicd?

I might be wrong but I think the network management program depends on the desktop. I know that GNOME uses NM and I think Plasma and Xfce do as well.

Anyway it's easy to change:

# apt install  wicd{,-{cli,curses,daemon,gtk}}- network-manager{,-gnome}

ofvergara wrote:

Does devuan offer a similar tool like this?

Not that I know of. See also http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=125809

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 2020-09-19 03:18:49

how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#2 2020-09-19 07:44:51

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#3 2020-09-19 16:09:46

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#4 2020-09-20 04:29:31

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#5 2020-09-20 11:49:24

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#6 2020-09-20 12:37:46

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#7 2020-09-21 02:38:26

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#8 2020-09-21 15:49:09

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#9 2020-09-22 04:17:36

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

#10 2020-09-22 20:23:13

Re: how to activate root gui at logon screen + problem with root password

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