Users & Groups "Don't ask for password on login" inactive

[Yekutiel]

I set up a user with "Password: Not asked on login" yet a password is still required for that user to login.

[veganism]

As a temporary solution, you can edit /etc/slim.conf and change the lines

#default_user        simone
#auto_login          no

to

default_user        your-username-here
auto_login          yes

Preferably the installer should edit these lines when the user selects to not require a password on login.

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And when Gallium OS switches to LXDM, the file to edit for that would be /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf, uncommenting the autologin line.

[reynhout]

@Yekutiel: Do you mean when "Password: Not asked on login" ... during the installation process from ISO?

GalliumOS beta1 uses SLiM as the login manager. Future releases starting with beta2 will use lxdm instead. As such, it probably doesn't make much sense to try to fix this right now in SLiM, but we should test it when integrating lxdm.

[Yekutiel]

@veganism Thanks but the user in question is not the default user but rather a "custom user" (according what I read in Users and Groups). In other words, the user in question is a user I created in Users and Groups after installing Gallium OS (which, of course, required I create a default user).

Also, this password requirement is very minor glitch for me. For now I can simply use something like "123456" as the password for now for the user that I would like to have no password whatsoever. I was simply alerting you guys about it so you could eventually get around to fixing it.

By the way, for normal people, typing something like "sudo mousepad /etc/slim.conf" into a Terminal to edit files is likely daunting. I like Mozilla's tounge-in-cheek warning about voiding a warranty after entering "about:config". I realize you guys did not build Xubuntu, but can't you add a simple GUI approach for editing super-duper, top secret, files that would, of course, still require users to enter in the administrator password for security?

Even something simple like a file the user could launch by double-clicking with that mouse, that would launch the Terminal and then prompt the user with a series of questions such as:

1. Are you sure you know what you are doing? Please enter "yes" or "no." Then press the enter key on your keyboard. By the way, if smoke starts coming out of your computer please remain calm. That's normal. However, if flames start bursting forth then "head for the hills" unless you notice the smell of pizza. Flames alone are trouble. But flames and the aroma of pizza indicate lunch is on the way!
2. Please enter the administrator password. Then press the enter key on your keyboard. See the previous entry regarding smoke and flames. It applies in this case as well.
3. Please enter the "path" (scary techie word explained below) to the folder is the file located in? [Directory is weird tech talk to most users. The term "folder" is standard user lexicon.] For example please type in or paste (by "right clicking" with your mouse) the path (that's weird techie speak) which might be something like: "/etc/" or "/home/joe." Then press the enter key on your keyboard. For example, the path to the City of Los Angeles would be United States of America/State of California/Los Angeles County/City of Los Angeles. In other words, a path (like a footpath or road) is a way to locate something in particular. Also, please don't type in the double quotation marks, but rather just the content inside. Then press the enter key on your keyboard. If you are even slightly perplexed about this weird techie process please don't worry. Instead, please see the YouTube video ABCDEFG for a 60 second tutorial that shows how to do this.
4. What is the name of the file you want to open? For example the file name might be something like "config" or "slim.conf." People have names. So do files. If you want to edit a file, you need to enter the name so the computer (let's call him Mr. Computer) can find it.
5. Are you really sure you want to risk messing up your computer to do this? The fate of the free world is in your hands! Please decide carefully!

Something like that would be a nice start. A little humor in the midst of all this tech talk helps people to relax. Also, YouTube (or Vimeo or DailyMotion or whatever) videos can be very helpful. They need not be long. But actually showing exactly what to do is extremely helpful for novices. As the adage goes, "Repetition is the mother of learning." Analysis, the father of learning (I guess), comes later.

Also, is there a simple way to back up my entire Gallium OS install to, say, a tar archive which I could then use to restore Gallium OS if I were to have, say, a catastrophic failure. I am often mystified at how difficult it is to restore backups on computers. Would something like the "dd" command work? Notice how the following article explains ridiculously terse Linux commands in plain English with bizarre items such as subjects, verbs, prepositions, and direct objects! http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/2-methods-to-clone-your-linux-hard-drive/

Before I start "sudu-ing around" I would like to have a backup.

@reynhout No. I do not mean during the installation process from the ISO. I mean a user I set up post-installation in Users and Groups.

See, I like using many Chromium and Firefox add-ons (extensions, plugins... whatever they call them these days). But many of they are so potentially insecure that when I want to decrease the risk of hackers obtaining my sensitive information I logout and then login as a different user.

For online banking I actually use a USB drive. I used to use Tahr Pup 6.02 (Puppy Linux) configured not to write to the USB. It ran remarkably fast on my old Dell D430 with 2 gigs of RAM.

With Gallium OS I've been using the installation USB I created for online banking but its a bit of hassle because I need to start from scratch each time. I guess I'll use Gparted to create a partition for another installation of Gallium OS. (I have a 32 gig SSD which is mostly unused therefore say a 7 or 8 gig "online banking partition" would be no problem for me).

It sure would be nice if you guys would explain this sort of stuff to ordinary users. Why not put options into the installer with explanations about how to create an "wild and free user" (with lots of browser extensions that are handy but risky), a "buttoned down user" (for online shopping and email) in which, say, uBlock Origin and No Squint are installed, and a "top secret user" (for online banking) with no extensions at all and, by default, does not save data once the user logs out? (This last step is easy with Puppy Linux because it runs entirely in RAM.)

[veganism]

Oh, I see. Sorry for misunderstanding your question. I tested this with a nightly ISO (these use LXDM, not SLiM, so this applies to the beta2 ISOs when those come out) and discovered some things.

First of all, the option to not use a password at login in the Users and Groups menu does nothing with LXDM, as far as I can tell. So you should ignore that option altogether.

Now, that's not to say that it's impossible to have an account without a password.

• Create a user by going to Users and Groups, and enter a password or generate one randomly.
• Open a terminal and type sudo passwd -d new-username-you-created-here
• Now edit the file /etc/shadow (ex: sudo nano /etc/shadow) and go to the very bottom.
• Where you see new-username:longthingoftext:, edit it to say new-username:U6aMy0wojraho:, paying close attention to only replacing the section of text between the colons directly following the new username.
• Save and close the file (ctrl+o and enter, then ctrl+x with nano).

Now you can log out, select the new user, and press enter instead of entering a password. There is no way to skip the password prompt with LXDM unfortunately, if you're switching users.

So there's really not much the Gallium OS project can do to fix this. It would be okay for now to hide that checkbox from Users and Groups, since it only confuses people.

[reynhout]

@veganism thanks for the info! So it sounds like even when we switch to lxdm in the release images, we'll still have an issue. Ultimately it's an upstream issue, which we should report.

[hugegreenbug]

It wouldn't be difficult to fix the option in the User and Groups settings program.

@veganism You can also edit /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf to enable autologin for lxdm.

[Yekutiel]

@hugegreenbug

Your reply makes much of the following moot in particular. Yet I included it as a guide for how one might allow adventurous souls with little Linux knowledge to add features that to Gallium OS that require only minimal “tweaking” on their part.

This is essentially a follow on the the issue I opened a few days ago, which you closed, in which I argued for setting the Windows Key to open the Whisker menu by default so as to allow normal users who have only, say, used Microsoft Windows to feel at home when they press the Windows Key.

This might seem inconsequential or even pedantic to sophisticated technical users, but I assure you millions of people who are accustomed to pressing the Windows Key in Microsoft Windows will think Gallium OS is broken or at least weird if nothing appears on their screen after they press the Windows Key.

In a sense, the Windows Key is like the English language: it is not merely a vernacular language but a vehicular language (lingua franca).

For the sake of argument let’s say Esperanto (Linux) is technically vastly superior to English (Microsoft Windows). Yet if you were to ask a random passerby on the street in Copenhagen for directions in Esperanto they would not be likely to understand you whereas if you were to ask in English instead, they would likely understand you.

@veganism

Thanks for the information. Here's another way to disable the password. I tested it successfully on Gallium OS Beta 1 which I downloaded a week or so ago from https://galliumos.org/

Here’s the terse version for technically-oriented folks which I took from http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2157635/create-user-xubuntu-password-required-login.html

1. Create the user profile with a disabled password as follows: sudo adduser --disabled-password
2. Then, delete the password as follows: sudo passwd -d

Here’s a version for regular users who might dislike computers and know almost nothing about how to use a Terminal.

1. This is tricky to do, and you should probably not do it unless you are confident that your computer does not have any valuable information that a person with criminal intent could use to harm you or others. You are probably better off using a simple password such as the name of your favorite flavor of ice cream. If you choose to ignore this warning please continue reading.
2. Open a Terminal by typing the word “terminal” in the so-called Whisker menu and the depressing the ENTER key on your keyboard. Huh? What? Let us explain. You can launch the Whisker menu by clicking on the fancy little square blue icon that has a circle in the middle of it which is probably in the bottom left corner of your screen. There’s little need for you to remember the name Whisker. “Fancy little square blue icon that has a circle in the middle of it which is probably in the bottom left corner of your screen” is a fine way to remember it and think of it.
3. If all goes according to plan you will then see a weird, techie-looking screen that might remind you of, say, a 1960’s movie in which people were using large machines that took up entire rooms in, say, universities and large American corporations called… computers. Of course these days that weird, techie-looking screen can be made to look a little more “normal” but its default hideous aesthetic design makes color blind computer nerds with poorly developed aesthetic sensibilities feel better. The hideous aesthetic design also helps to keep normal people from messing around with computers. Hey, computer nerds need jobs and status too! Anyways, that weird, techie-looking screen is called a “Terminal” (as in computer terminal, as in mainframe computers from, you guessed it, depicted reverentially in many Hollywood movies from the 1950’s through 1980’s). Take a deep breath and imagine yourself traveling back in time. If you follow the directions below correctly you won’t need to look at the Terminal for more than a minute or two. Like recovering from a bad headache, you’ll feel better when this is all over. Also, this would be a good time to reconsider removing the password. If you like strawberry ice cream, why not just use strawberry as your password? Are you worried you’ll get hungry each time to login to your computer? ;)
4. Alas, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. You are in intrepid soul. Aren’t you? Ok. Here’s the top secret information that could change the balance of power in the world. Are you ready for some tech talk? Here we go! Create the a new user with a disabled password as follows: sudo adduser --disabled-password . Then depress the ENTER key on your keyboard. Then depress the ENTER key on your keyboard to make all the extraneous questions that pop up go away. You can do a google search for sudo if you care to learn what it means. Otherwise, the rest of the stuff you typed should seem more or less comprehensible. Right? Please note that you can actually copy and paste sudo adduser --disabled-password into the Terminal. But the regular Ctrl and V (the keyboard shortcut for pasting, say, text in regular programs such as Chrome or Firefox) won’t work in a Terminal. But Shift and Ctrl and V will paste in a Terminal. Alternatively, “right clicking” with your mouse button and choosing PASTE will also normally work in a Terminal.
5. Ok? We are almost done. Here’s some more techie stuff. Hold on tight. To delete the password you need to type or paste sudo passwd -d . Then depress the ENTER key on your keyboard
6. Now click on the little X in the top right corner of the Terminal window to close the window. (Alternatively, to exit the Terminal, if you want to feel like a real computer genius, type the word exit in the Terminal window and the depress the RETURN key on your keyboard).
7. Now go look in the mirror and smile. You have taken one small step towards becoming a computer genius!

Would it be difficult to add information about how to remove a password directly to Users and Groups? I imagine someone might create a button or a link within Users and Groups that says something like, “How to remove a password.” If a user were to click on the button or the link the above instructions would be shown on his display.

At the very least the instructions could be added to a user manual that might be located at: https://wiki.galliumos.org/Welcome_to_the_GalliumOS_Wiki/User Manual

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A related topic follows

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The following looks like it might be desirable for users who simply "surf the web." Imagine some four year old child who uses the old family IBM XT computer to call her dad at work on, say, Google Hangouts. (Ok, maybe an IBM AT not an IBM XT). Does she really need to learn how to login to the computer? Might it be reasonable to wait until she’s 5 or 6 years old to teach her this sort of information.

However, /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf does not exist on my machine. I suppose perhaps the file _lxdm.conf _ is on my machine but in a different directory.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LXDM#Autologin/LXDM#Adding_face_icons Autologin

To log in to one account automatically on startup, without providing a password, find the line in /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf that looks like this:

autologin=dgod

Uncomment it, substituting the target user instead of dgod.

[reynhout]

This does work for me (fresh install, nightly build) from the ISO installer screen, but in Users & Groups, the "Don't ask for password on login" checkbox is inactive (not selectable). This is imperfect, but at least not deceptive.

[Yekutiel]

It is not merely imperfect but more importantly and more to the point it fails to allow users basic functionality: being able to choose to login without a password. Linux will remain in a "tech ghetto" as long as basic functionality that Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OSes have allowed for years is unavailable in a user friendly format.

[reynhout]

The functionality exists, it just doesn't have a working GUI. I agree that it should be fixed. I suspect the problem will end up being upstream, but I cannot test that presently. I'm going to tag this issue accordingly so that it can be looked at when someone is able.

[Yekutiel]

We agree.

[ghost]

I've found some interesting new things about this issue.

in /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf, there are 2 options of interest

autologin=username and no_password=1

If you uncomment the former and change the name to your username, this skips lxdm completely. This may be desireable for some users, but not all. With the latter option, the theory is, if that is set and a user has no password (this can be achieved with sudo passwd -d username) lxdm should skip the password prompt for that user, but I was unable to get this working in my testing, so now it's officially a bug in LXDM.

[Yekutiel]

Thanks for taking the time to test this, post your results, and indicate that it's officially a bug in LXDM.

[reynhout]

Option is still unavailable in upstream 16.04.

[ghost]

Oh god. On my way down here to comment I read something that made me want to puke. I'm closing this. I know it was a long time ago, but toxicity in the comments should not be tolerated.

[ghost]

To be clear: The issue still exists, though it does appear to be upstream. If someone wants to reopen a new issue, fine, but this one is dead.