New user accounts

[53hornet]

Greetings! Let me start by saying that Leo's done an incredible job. The effects, the music, the TTS, and the system config menu in CoolRetroTerm -- they're all amazing. This desktop is hugely fun to use and I look forward to exploring it more.

One thing I can't figure out how to do is make a user account for myself. I can change the default user (Commodore) password. When I go to System -> Admin settings -> User accounts I can create a new username but I can't set the password. No matter what I type in it says "don't use a common word."

So instead of using that I added a user account the way I would on any Linux system with the `adduser` command. However when I try to switch to that user, it kicks me back out to the user picker. Am I missing something custom in MATE that I need to change in order to use a separate login?

[LeoNigro]

Hi 53hornet,

Thanks for the praise. It means a lot to me to see the effort recognised.

I haven't done anything to stop the process of adding a user, but I don't encourage it either.
Commodore OS is tailored as a single user autobooting system like the micros of old.

The Commodore user has additional privileges applied to stop security getting in your way as linux tends to do.
Some scripts likely depend on that, probably more so in COS3 than COS2.
It's not really a requirement, but if you add a user, you should, if you want the happiest experience, provide them with the same privileges as the Commodore user.
You would need to edit the superuser config file manually via the command:;/i]

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sudo visudo

Be careful, you can break things in there.
I used to do some automation in COS1 to update the sudoers file, but it always made me worry, so I am reluctant to apply that now.
(edit: you know, having written all that, and taking a look at the sudoers file I think it might be a faulty assumption of mine and I don't think editing it is necessary. If the forum allowed strikethrough text, I would use it on the above paragraph
However I can't rule out that it isn't what is causing you problems. Sorry to hedge. )

The config a new user gets should be identical to the Commodore user but for one or two things.
Try as I might, I could not get the demobases to work anywhere else other than within the home folder (as a single copy).
If you want to keep that for a new user you will have to manually copy the .jgamebase folder from the Commodore user to your new user's home folder with overwrite.

It just occurred to me that I could have fixed that minor hitch post install. Oh well. You're going off the happy path!!!

[53hornet]

Thank you for the tips! I'm pretty comfortable with Linux and the command line in general. I figured if my user is in the same groups as the Commoodore user, and the sudoers file acts on group permissions, then I'd be all set. But copying in the demos makes sense, I wouldn't want to miss out on those.

Your comment on the happy path made me think I should try the install on a few devices. So far I'm 3/3 installs which is great! On one of them I noticed the "OEM reset" option and set that. When I rebooted and logged in for the "first time experience," it prompted me for a new password for the Commodore account. On the device I wrote this post from, I didn't do that step.

Long story short, I just kept the Commodore account and set the password with

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passwd

And on all three laptops all work great! Mix of hardware and resources available.