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Can't login, not even as root
  • GuidoGuido May 2010
    Hello everyone, I installed a week ago slitaz stable on an old laptop that I wanted to use again. I'm impressed with the speed of Slitaz, it brought this old machine (PIII) back to life, kudos to the developers.
    Since it was working great, but wanting to get newer packages, I upgraded to the cooking version. Now whenever it starts I get a screen with "failed to execute login command" and brings back to the login window. I've tried my old account, tux (just to give it a shot) and root. It surprises me that I can't login as a root. What can I do to fix this problem if I can't even get to the terminal? Thx in advance!
  • jankajanka May 2010
    i think we are the pooper guys,i have the same problem as you are.and i don't have the solution either.
  • kultexkultex May 2010
    please, can it be a little bit more of information!!!!

    is it on usb stick? - filesystem? installed on the hard disk?

    if you would have used the search, you would have found this threads:

    http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/comment/5812/#Comment_5812

    http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/comment/2808/#Comment_2808

    and I recomand you to stay on stable
  • GuidoGuido May 2010
    Hello kultex, I'm sorry, I thought stating that I "installed it" one would assume that it was installed on the hard drive and not running live. Anyway it was installed onto the HD using the Ext3 filesystem.
    Of course I did use the search function (I rarely write in a forum) but didn't find any useful information since I can't login and using the live cd doesn't give me rights to make changes to some folders.
    Any other help is appreciated, thx.
  • kultexkultex May 2010
    you can change rights to the folders when you are logged in as root either with pcmanfm - form the liveCD you can do it too - there is in fcmanfm in the menulist the possibility to start this folder as root - or you use chown and chgrp

    I think it should be:

    chown -R tux /home/tux
    chgrp -R tux /home/tux

    I am not that good with terminal - my faforite is Midnight commander, perhaps somebody is better tahn me and can correct

  • seawolfseawolf May 2010
    Hi @Guido --

    1) Can you log-in from a console, i.e. pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 and logging in there? If so, you can perform actions without use of a Live CD (hopefully!)

    2) Could you check the process outlined at http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:faq-login just to make sure your users files (boh Tux and root) are attributed correctly? You can do this from a LiveCD as long as the UIDs are the same. This is just to make sure.

    3) If you can't log in as root either, is there anything noticeably wrong with the system-wide authentication in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group or /etc/gshadow? (Info on these can be found from here: http://ur1.ca/02c6a)
    I think those are the only places that determine valid log-in information... am I wrong?

    4) You may be able to boot from a Stable live CD and 'chroot' to your installation. From there you can switch back to stable. I'm sorry that I can't go in to detail on this point as I've only used chroot once before!

    HIH.
  • sanekssaneks May 2010
    yup, follow the links posted here, should work fine. I guess you can copy the etc/skel folder from the cd as well. then change ownership of copied file

    chown -R /yourfolder yourname

    if all fails, I suggest you partition your drive to copy /home on a 2nd drive, rename the /home folder and do a fresh install.. if anything breaks you can easy reinstall without formatting /home.. the hidden files with .dot in front are your config files however and it might be wise to create them new if sth. broke.. I usually create a new home folder when reinstalling and copy over what I need from the backup folder.. you have to copy them as root, so you have to change ownership again if you want to access and modify them as normal user.

  • kultexkultex May 2010
    thx seeawolf - sorry guido I read "I can log in as root" - so my answer was perhaps wrong just to quick
  • GuidoGuido May 2010
    Hello Everyone, thx for your help, have been busy with work and couldn't answer before. I ended up reverting back to stable that very same day so I didn't get to try any of the solutions. Sorry for taking the lazy way, but as I hadn't done any big mods to the system it was quite fast to reinstall and start from scratch. Thx for your help and I'm really enjoying Slitaz, I'll be recommending it to everybody with slow machines.
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