Re: [PLUG] Help starting X and Gnome in Slackware 8.0

[gabriel rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net>]

On Sat, Jul 14, 2001 at 12:32:44AM -0400, John Beck wrote:
> added a user by doing: useradd jbeck Next, I set my
>  password: passwd jbeck
> 
>  Now I go to log in, and everything is fine, except that it says it can't find a
> home directory, so it is using /home. I wasn't quite sure
>  how to make my default directory be something like /home/jbeck ?

Your default home directory, stored in /etc/passwd, probably is
/home/jbeck. But useradd won't create it unless you tell it to.
Presuming useradd at least takes the same flags on Slackware that it
does on Debian (hell, Debian's and NetBSD's flags seem to match up
exactly, so it's probably a safe assumption), you need to give
useradd the -m flag if you want the home directory created.

>  Next, I typed startx at the command prompt, and I got a few messages, which
> includes:
>  Xauth: timeout in locking authority files //.Xauthority
>  Xauth: timeout in locking authority files //.Xauthority
>  Xauth: timeout in locking authority files //.Xauthority

Interesting. Sounds like it's actually trying to write to
/${HOME}/.Xauthority, but ${HOME} isn't filled. This makes it sound
like useradd actually *doesn't* have a default_home setting.

Run useradd -D. If it doesn't have this setting, use useradd -D -b
/home to fix that.

This (and more) is all described in useradd(8), btw.

-- 
       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net


______________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group       -      http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements-http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  -  http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug