On 02/23/2017 10:47 AM, Dan Norton wrote:
While playing around with Xfce, startx, and fvwm I've managed to
clobber something such that the user can't log in. All attempts result
in a fresh login box with my inputs removed. However, it is still
possible to log in as root.
I've tried passwd to no avail.
I've tried editing /etc/shadow and removing everything between the
first two : (expecting to log in with a blank or no password) to no avail.
To get to this point, I used Xfce on:
#1 SMP Debian 3.16.39-1 (2016-12-30)
fvwm was installed using Synaptic and run from an Xfce terminal
session. When it did not produce the expected result, I shut down and
rebooted. At this point it was no longer possible to log in as user -
only as root.
Do I have to rename /home/<user>, delete <user>, then re-define it as
a new user and restore its home directory?
Or is there a better way?
It should be possible to do some serious research and figure out exactly
which package is croaking, and why, and then edit the configuration file
for that package in /home/<user>. But in my experience with similar
situations, this takes much more time than it is worth. I have found
that usually just deleting the configuration files in /home/<user> will
work. This is probably easier than the solution that you propose, but
your solution should work as well, as long as you don't copy back the
configuration files when you do the restore.
Thanks,
- Dan
--
73's de Mike, WB5VQX
