Idiot of the Year Award Here :] ~

[larsd]

I'm running Kubuntu 14.10 on an AMD/Asus processor/board, using a LVM and separate boot drive.
After almost a year, I've had my first crash, not sure what's going on here.
I'm running a KDE plasma desktop, and I created another user a couple of days ago. Now, that's the only user that can log onto my X system; to log on as me (but not really me), I have to start in recovery mode, go to a root prompt and type startx, I'm using an Nvidia graphics card, a Geforce 6X, no big deal, it's worked fine with that card for some time.
Anyway, after fooling with the system a lot and attempting repairs, I finally got it to boot to a signon screen (I did have my user set up to just log on with no splash screen). Okay, the user I created can login, when I try, it just sits there. My UID is 1000, I believe, and the new user is 1001. Anyway, when I perform the startx from the command line as root, I boot right up to my X system, with all my apps, mail, browser bookmarks, docs, pics, etc... But, when I go to system settings, I'm listed as root !
I've included some output from the auth.log, which I can comprehend, but I'm not sure how to proceed. It looks like a problem with PAM and security.
Could I delete my original user, recreate him with the same UID, and be OK ? I'm running out of ideas, and I cannot stay logged on a computer as root for very long either.
Output follows, please have some patience. I'm really not asking anyone to fix this, just give me a clue. I've struggled with this for a couple of days now, thought I was going to have to do a reinstall, but I had home backed up, so it wouldn't have been too bad. Output of auth.log follows: What's crazy is it's seeing me with a UID of 0 !

2015-02-03T11:55:15.355951-06:00 jjspc login[9444]: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user dave by root(uid=0)
2015-02-03T11:56:06.594686-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "dave"
2015-02-03T11:56:06.604634-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm:auth): pam_sm_authenticate
2015-02-03T11:56:08.360634-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm-greeter:session): session closed for user lightdm
2015-02-03T11:56:08.362448-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm-greeter:session): pam_sm_close_session
2015-02-03T11:56:08.362486-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm-greeter:setcred): pam_sm_setcred
2015-02-03T11:56:08.366629-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm:setcred): pam_sm_setcred
2015-02-03T11:56:08.367411-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session opened for user dave by (uid=0)
2015-02-03T11:56:08.383995-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0
2015-02-03T11:56:08.384870-06:00 jjspc kernel: [ 3315.759719] systemd-logind[1511]: New session c19 of user dave.
2015-02-03T11:56:08.388572-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm:session): pam_sm_open_session
2015-02-03T11:56:08.388635-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm:session): pam-kwallet: final socket path: /tmp//dave.socket
2015-02-03T11:56:08.638684-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm-greeter:setcred): pam_sm_setcred
2015-02-03T11:56:08.639068-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm-greeter:session): session opened for user lightdm by (uid=0)
2015-02-03T11:56:08.648891-06:00 jjspc kernel: [ 3316.024539] systemd-logind[1511]: New session c20 of user lightdm.
2015-02-03T11:56:08.649154-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm-greeter:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0
2015-02-03T11:56:08.653606-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm-greeter:session): pam_sm_open_session
2015-02-03T11:56:08.653720-06:00 jjspc lightdm: pam_kwallet(lightdm-greeter:session): pam_kwallet: open_session called without kwallet_key
2015-02-03T11:56:57.400310-06:00 jjspc sudo: dave : TTY=tty2 ; PWD=/home/dave ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/startx
2015-02-03T11:56:57.400534-06:00 jjspc sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by dave(uid=0)
2015-02-03T11:57:51.738291-06:00 jjspc polkitd(authority=local): Registered Authentication Agent for unix-session:c16 (system bus name :1.261 [/usr/lib/kde4/libexec/polkit-kde-authentication-agent-1], object path /org/kde/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)

[Snowhog]

when I perform the startx from the command line as root, I boot right up to my X system, with all my apps, mail, browser bookmarks, docs, pics, etc... But, when I go to system settings, I'm listed as root !

This is likely the 'root' cause of your issue, or at least, a compounding of it.

Log in to a console session. Change into your 'original' user home directory. IF you are logged in as root (prompt ends with #), type: chown -R user:user * otherwise type: sudo chown -R user:user *
(where user is your log in user name)

Log out and reboot.

[larsd]

Thank you very much. For some reason though, the command above didn't work; I was still root. Somehow, my main account had taken on the UID of 1000, when it
should have been 1001. Anyway, I'm up and running after fighting this thing for another couple of hours. There are other problems with broken packages, so I might just make another backup of home essentials and format and reinstall.
I didn't state in my first post, but I really appreciate the friendly atmosphere here, and all the work that the developers, testers, etc.. perform; I did use Mint for awhile, but Kubuntu is just nicer and IMHO, better. I started out with Gentoo, believe it or not, then fooled with OpenBSD for quite a while working with PF.
To be honest, I have just never taken the time to sit down and go through the wiki's, the forums, and all the other information out there. The only redeeming quality I have is not giving up . Again, thanks for the help. I'll try really hard to find the time to start learning exactly how my system functions.

[Snowhog]

Anyway, I'm up and running after fighting this thing for another couple of hours.

That's a good thing.

There are other problems with broken packages,

Run: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

I didn't state in my first post, but I really appreciate the friendly atmosphere here, and all the work that the developers, testers, etc.. perform; I did use Mint for awhile, but Kubuntu is just nicer and IMHO, better.

Thank you. We really appreciate that sentiment. We all believe that Kubuntu Forums . Net is, almost certainly, the friendliest, most member helpful Kubuntu Linux forum on the 'Net. It's what we strive for.