head in a twist re users/lack of root

[toad]

Just installed ubuntu 09/10 for a friend and used an old /home

Now he decided he doesn't want the old /home anymore and would much rather have the default ubuntu setup.

I was going to just delete all stuff on ~ and copy over the contents of /etc/skel - but that doesn't seem like a good idea looking at its contents. Things have changed since I've been in the buntu land...

Next idea, remove ubuntu-desktop and reinstall. Does that sound good?

I was going to remove the initial user and tried to log in to tty1 as root. Obviously this would have made everything very easy, but then I got stuck Hence the title of thread.

Or is there a much easier way?

[dibl]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

Next idea, remove ubuntu-desktop and reinstall. Does that sound good?

Ermmmmm. No, that does not sound like a way that would deal with the non-GUI files laying about in the old /home.

You say "doesn't want the old /home" -- do you mean doesn't want what is in it? Or doesn't want a partition used that way?

Regardless, if it's a new installation and there's not a big investment in configuring it, I'd say spend the 20 minutes to install a new OS on it. That lets you put in the user name and password and everything that you need to do anyway, and you can put /home where you want it, and probably be done just as fast as fiddling with what is there now. That's my two cents' worth.

[toad]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

Wise words...

Am doing so at the mo.

One problem that came up was that we have a GeForce 5200 nvidia card. I downloaded the driver but the system still didn't manage to push the old tube above 800x600 - but it is capable of 1600x1200. But as I said, it is ancient.

Will check your famous FAQ to see whether you've got the solution

In the meantime, many thanks for your time

[dibl]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

This should be close to right:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3107406.0

[toad]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

What a marvel you are

Well, my friend has started installing... On the first install mask is a link to release notes. He's been mulling over them for the last half hour

Mind you, he did find something which made my arch kde accept CTRL+ALT+backspace

[GreyGeek]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

Normally, one could su (sudo su -) to root, and as root remove the user and then totally delete their home account. Then recreate them.

However, with the primary user also given default root access via sudo I do not know how that would play out if one deleted the primary user, especially since they may have opened a konsole dependent on the existance of the primary user DE. And, logging in as root is not allowed.

[toad]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

Yes, gg, nice, isn't it I didn't try it 'cos I didn't have the time - shame in retrospect.

Anyway, we are sitting in front of the new install and everything is fine so far, haven't got on to the screen business yet for which I still have a tab open in my laptop thanks to dibl.

Anyway, he got the idea of having grub1 on the mbr of hd0 (grub legacy nomenclature) pointing to the first partition of the second disk and then installing ubuntu on the second disk with its own grub2 on the resident mbr. He's a geek

[dibl]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

Anyway, he got the idea of having grub1 on the mbr of hd0 (grub legacy nomenclature) pointing to the first partition of the second disk and then installing ubuntu on the second disk with its own grub2 on the resident mbr. He's a geek

Yep, that will work -- that's how I had 9.10 set up, booting the machine with grub1 from sidux. When I tried to install Kubuntu 9.10, its grub2 bombed on the "os-prober" function and wouldn't write a proper boot menu to include my debian/sidux, so I just reinstalled legacy grub from sidux, and let it find Kubuntu, and everything was working well that way.

Kubuntu 10.04's grub2 is now booting my system -- when I installed it, its os-prober did find the debian/sidux installation and set up the boot menu correctly, so that's working out fine.

[toad]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

It does work, I set it up for him... He found it slightly confusing at first though, hence "he got the idea". Now he is more than happy thought 'cos his grub legacy remains untouched and just chainloads the mbr of the second hard disk, i.e. linux land.

But his monitor is not recognized correctly. 800x600 it is and it stays - GeForce5200 card using the 173 recommended driver. I tried the 96-nvidia version and X didn't even come up. I then dabbled with nouveau, installed the kernel source and restarted X but had the feeling that it was still running nvidia!?! But it was too late to delve into it further...

Oh well, I'm off for a week so I can do a little research

[dibl]

Re: head in a twist re users/lack of root

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the nouveau driver looked on my rig, when I first installed 10.04. Of course I'm spoiled for 3D effects and so I promptly nuked it and installed the proprietary driver, but if your friend is not in love with 3D, I would encourage you to try the default nouveau driver -- maybe that's good enough.

Probably the difficulties with the proprietary driver are more to do with the monitor. In nvidia-settings (in "kdesudo" mode), try the "Detect Displays" button and see if it can read the EDID. If it does, then use the "Save to X Config" button. If not, you'll probably have to figure out a "modeline" to include in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to set it correctly.