Disable auto login in Knoppix 6.2

[rajasekaran]

Hi friends,

I have installed Knoppix 6.2 in my system... It works very nice.. I like it.

Unfortunately, it uses only knoppix live user.. I have created some other user accounts... But, I cant able to login using different user account. Knoppix user account login in automatically. Please help me to disable this option and get the login in screen.

Thanks in advance...

[Capricorny]

It can be done - to convert Knoppix to an ordinary multi-user system. But the standard advice is, if you want to do this, install ordinary Debian instead. Put simply: If you have to ask about this, you probably shouldn't do it.

[Harry Kuhman]

It can be done - to convert Knoppix to an ordinary multi-user system. But the standard advice is, if you want to do this, install ordinary Debian instead. Put simply: If you have to ask about this, you probably shouldn't do it.

Very good advice.

[rajasekaran]

Hi friend,

Thanks for your reply... Now I have installed Knoppix 6.2 as single user... I cant seen any option to install it as Debian ( includes Multi user option) during the installation.... I remember that, I have select this option during Knoppix 5.3 installation... Can you say how to do that in 6.2...

[Harry Kuhman]

Knoppix isn't Debian. It is based on Debian. And it is a strange mix of different Debian versions that generally cause problems for people who try to install it to a hard disk.

You can not install Debian from the Knoppix disc.

However, you can go to the debian website at debian.org and download an install disc iso for any of the Debian versions. If you have high speed internet then I suggest downloading the net install disc iso. However, if you are on dial-up or don't have Internet access where you intend to install, I suggest disc 1 of the install discs (all of the discs are not needed and generally not a good idea to download unless you are planing on going where you will have no Internet access, and maybe not even then). Also, you will find that there are different versions of Debian available, I suggest staying away from "stable" for anything except a mission critical server system, it is too old. I suggest "unstable", although you might even want "testing". Don't be fooled by the names, "unstable" is far more stable than anything that Microsoft ever released. You can also pick from builds for various hardware. Knoppix uses the i386 code. if you have a typical PC you may want to use that or go with a 64 bit version for Intel or AMD cpus.

Once you have done a desktop install of Debian you will have multiple user support. You can then choose to install any or all of the application that are included in Knoppix, or pick from a huge selection of other programs in the Debian repository.

[Capricorny]

Knoppix isn't Debian. It is based on Debian. And it is a strange mix of different Debian versions that generally cause problems for people who try to install it to a hard disk.

Actually, I experienced few version conflicts when installing/upgrading 6.0.1. 6.2 seems far worse in that respect. For example, I have not been able to install samba server because of conflicts!
But I can't see how this should be such an impossible problem to solve. And conversion utilities for Knoppix 6.2 -> Debian shouldn't be that hard to make.

For now, I think the easiest thing for converting is simply to take the installed package list for Knoppix and use it for Debian. This command will write the current package selection to a file

 sudo dpkg --get-selections > Desktop/selections_20100210.txt

This list could then be used in/fed to a script for installing. (Currently, I have 1333 packages installed.)

[zgregoryg]

Here I come again with a solution that works, instead of lame comments that don't solve anything... Like I did here:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads...noppix-6/page2

I'm not going to address using the Knoppix distro as your desktop system, however to disable autologin on Knoppix 6.2, create a boot thumb drive - use the directions supplied in the link above. This will create a writeable portion of the bootable thumb drive filesystem called UNIONFS.

One you have done that simply edit the /etc/inittab file as follows:

Replace lines like this:

1:12345:respawn:/bin/bash -login </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1

With this:

1:12345:respawn:/bin/login </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1

Do this for all four tty entries and add tty5 and tty6 as well

Next change your default run level to 3 by changing id:5:initdefault to id:3:initdefault

Next make sure you set passwords for root and the knoppix user

as root

passwd root
passwd knoppix

Save the file and restart - you will now be booted into a console login screen which prompts for the username and password

Once you have logged in, boot into Xwindow if you so desire as follows

sudo /etc/init.d/knoppix-startx start

Whoo-hoo!

[dinosoep]

Hey, capricorny, thats just crazy
So when I do that and try to put together some sort of script I can practically restore my system on any debian based distro?

[Frattimonde]

how can one get at least it to ask for root password?

[Capricorny]

Here I come again with a solution that works, instead of lame comments that don't solve anything... Like I did here:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads...noppix-6/page2

I'm not going to address using the Knoppix distro as your desktop system, however to disable autologin on Knoppix 6.2, create a boot thumb drive - use the directions supplied in the link above. This will create a writeable portion of the bootable thumb drive filesystem called UNIONFS.

One you have done that simply edit the /etc/inittab file as follows:

Replace lines like this:

1:12345:respawn:/bin/bash -login </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1

With this:

1:12345:respawn:/bin/login </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1

Do this for all four tty entries and add tty5 and tty6 as well

Next change your default run level to 3 by changing id:5:initdefault to id:3:initdefault

Next make sure you set passwords for root and the knoppix user

as root

passwd root
passwd knoppix

Save the file and restart - you will now be booted into a console login screen which prompts for the username and password

Once you have logged in, boot into Xwindow if you so desire as follows

sudo /etc/init.d/knoppix-startx start

Whoo-hoo!

This can be really useful for many purposes: First, the runlevel change 5 ->3 can save the day when trying to get Knoppix up and running on new hardware. I had plenty of problems with graphics controllers and 6.2.X, some times I couldn't even troubleshoot. Setting up a USB stick with 3 as default is a safe way to proceed. Furthermore, when using a Knoppix machine as a server, the graphical interface is mostly unnecessary overhead. When using the machine for daily work, avoiding autologin can be important, and a natural solution would be to preset user and root passwords to something trivial, to be changed later if desirable. If such things can be sorted out for usb-based Knoppix, the reasons for full HD installs in fact become fewer. As for the link to the Samba server thread, falling back on tarball installs or compilation for standard component of a package-based system is a workaround, not a full solution. Packages save us an enormous lot of work in system administration.