Root Login

Technical Issues and Assistance
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#1

Hi and thanks, I have been looking around for a new distro and found what I needed in Manjaro, I use Awesome WM for my work.

I built an XFCE and put Awesome on top but it seemed to have a lot of little problems like the monitor sequence was off.

I use 4 monitors and for shortcuts to work in Awesome when moving documents around, that needs to be correct. Specifically, monitors from left to right should be in line according to their position. They were not.

Anyway, there were other items. I decided to try the community build of Awesome, that seemed to not suffer from this.

The problem is, is that I can no longer login as root which I could on the original build from Manjaro. Not only that but I can't even sudo command line without a request for the password. What is the point of a UI of this is how you have to launch an app? I might as well be CLI.

I understand some of the reasoning but one of the reasons I chose Manjaro was the original builds allowed for root login. I have been a developer for over 30 years, I work from home, I don't share my computer, I am on a firewalled network. Literally, I would need to have root privileges like a hundred times a day.

All my legacy data is stored on devices with root as the owner, I can't even open them. Please if someone would tell me how to configure it for root login it would be appreciated.

Thanks for any help in this area. I spent a lot of time deciding what distro and would like it to be this one.

#2

Wait... so sudo su doesn't even work? I'm a little confused.

#3

sudo su works but it asks for a login, and I would have to do that a hundred times a day, more than that, my data is stored on devices that root is the owner, I can't even mount the drives, thanks again for your help

#4

I'm not sure what you want here.

You want to be able to log in as root? Set a root password passwd root and log in as root.

Want to change drive/file permissions to allow your normal user access to the files? Change the file permissions using e.g. chown.

Please don't make this into a "personal support" thread where you tack on a load of "and another thing..." issues. The vast majority of issues have already been solved so please do try a forum and web search.

2 Likes
#5

I want to login as root but it is not offering it. I when I did the install it asks to assign a root login which i did, so it is there but the DM doesn't allow the option. It did on the XFCE I built, but on the Awesome Community, build it doesn't.

#6

There's a "log in as other user" option isn't there? Put the root username in and away you go (and ready to break your system when you accidentally delete the wrong file).

2 Likes
#7

Nope, I clicked to make sure and nothing shows, I guess as there is only the one login aside from root. It might if I added another login internally then log back out but it has nothing to offer as I am the only user right now

#8

Which DM are you using?

You will have to type the root username into the login username box, not select it from a drop-down list. It's a system account, not a user account.

#9

Actually not sure so whatever came on the community awesome but it looks the same as XFCE that I built, I am looking to see if it is on the site

#10

Well, you could find that out by checking your installed packages or running services...

Just in case you've missed this for some reason, all you have to do is:

lightdm

However I strongly recommend against running graphical sessions as root. There's literally no need to do so and all you're doing is opening yourself up for trouble.

1 Like
#11

I am not logged into that as I am working using my old distro on a dual boot

#12

It's going to be difficult to diagnose an issue with Manjaro if you're not running it. :wink:

#13

As I explained, I access root a hundred times a day, I have 18 terrabytes of storage that is "owned" by root that I cannot access

#14

Ok I will reboot into that, and ping you back

#15

sudo has a timeout setting, and if you really want to you can remove the password requirement.

That's not a valid reason. It is trivial to alter file permissions.

#16

I cannot mount drives, further I am in the file system all the time, I will ping you back in a minute

#17

This is a fixable issue.

Start a new thread for that and someone will help you fix it.

#19

I need the access, your normal builds offer it, if you don't want to post it here I put my email in the intial post

I am now up in that install

#20

If you want to learn how to change your drives file permissions type this in a terminal:

man chown
man chmod
1 Like
#21

I don't want to convert owner ship of 18 terabytes of data, you normal install offers this. Why it is that we have to be saved from ourselves? I have been doing this for over 30 years and have never compromised a system. If you install something like Slackware, it is a given. I don't understand what the difficulty is here, you know the answer.

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