removing a gui mistakenly installed for root [CLOSED]

[rodgoslin]

This is a bit strange. A while back I had a run of multiple hardware failures. To help out, my daughters husband offered to rebuild a new PC with Mageia. He is in the normal way very knowlegable in computing, doing it for a living, but only in a Windows environment. He did the job, and handed it over, but he'd installed Mageia with root as a user. A definite NoNo. It's not a thing I'd come across, coming from Unix. Is there any way to eliminate the GUi framework, restoring the machine to normality. I've naturally not used the thing, and the only solution I can come up with is to do a comple re-install. That's not a problem and will enable me to set the machine upo to my own preferences, but does rather negate his kindness in doing the rebuild. Otherwise he hadn't made to bad a job of it. His root partition was perhaps a bit larger than I would have made it, but then.

[doktor5000]

root is always a user. Also a graphical environment is not installed for any particular user, it is installed on the system to be used by every user. Why do you want to "eliminate the GUi framework" ?
If you don't want to use the root user to login then don't choose it and choose your regular user instead.
If you don't have a regular user then create one: https://doc.mageia.org/mcc/9/en/content ... #userdrake

[rodgoslin]

I am aware of that. I ran a UNIX systrem before came to Linux, and there, root was sacrosanct and nobody by sys admin was privy to the passord, or its use. My son-in -law, being a Windows man was not aware that Graohical User Interface was not commonly made available for root use, on security grounds. So I am left with what is regarded as an insecure installation. Before I wipe the whole thing and start over, I'm asling if there is a way of negaiting, removing or disabling the GUI function, no more, no less. He has installed a user (myself), and that works fine. It might be that I simply remove root as a user, in the same way that a user account that is no longer required is deleted, but I'm not at all sure that root as root may also no longer exist.

[doktor5000]

Your description sounds quite confusing. What do you actually want to achieve ? Remove the possibility for root to have a graphical login?
If you would remove the X server and your desktop environment, your regular user would also not be able to login. If you would then reinstall X server and your desktop environment, both root and regular users would still be able to login, so that would not change anything.

Also an installation does not really become dramatically more insecure just because root logged into the X server.

If you want to remove the X server, then you would need to remove at least all packages which are required by the task-x11 package, that should also remove everything else which in turn requires an X server

Code: Select all

urpme fonts-ttf-dejavu fonts-ttf-liberation libx11 x11-apps x11-data-bitmaps x11-data-cursor-themes x11-docs x11-font-misc x11-font-type1 x11-server-xorg x11-tools

[rodgoslin]

No. As I pointed out in my initial submission, the installer, somehow managed to create root, having the login, and GUI effects as that of an ordinary user, commonly accepted as a definitely unwanted function. This is a user side anomaly, and not an OS malfunction, and disabling functionality across the entire OS, is not a solution. Root is not indicated as a user, in the Mageia Control Centre, but acts if it was. Since it is not recorded as a normal user, it cannot be removed as such. anfd in any case, it would almost certainly eliminate root totally. Root and branch, as it were.

[sturmvogel]

There seems to be a light missunderstanding of the concept.
It is highly discouraged to graphically login as root for various reasons. BUT it is possible! Simply not using the root account with GUI, eleminates any security issues. It is not possible on most linux distributions to eleminate the root user (except these distributions which solely use sudo...).

Root is not indicated as a user, in the Mageia Control Centre, but acts if it was.

Root is a system user and also listed in MCC Userdrake. You need to uncheck "Filter system users" under options....

[morgano]

Do root appear as a user choice at desktop login?

[rodgoslin]

Hi. Apologies for my tardy replying.
Morgano. The particular login does not appear as a choice, Instead, the login offered is the last login used. In this case, the previous user, the installer, had logged in as root. All that was required for a normal login, was to change user to the normal user, and amend the password accordingly.
Sturmvogel. You are correct, in previous replies not addressing the request. However unticking the filter option does not reveal anything different to an install that does not allow a root login at boot, with a user GUI. As suggested, perhaps I should leave it at that, and never use the boot option as root. As I said, the installer, despite being a career long administrator of Windows systems, has no experience of Linux systems, toeing the Widows line at all times. I had hoped to perhaps open his eyes to a superior Operating System, but his addiction appears total. It is, of course, possible that it was always possible to login at boot, as root, but I'd never tried it, or wished to.

[Germ]

...It is, of course, possible that it was always possible to login at boot, as root, but I'd never tried it, or wished to...

Exactly.

Although, some distros do not create a root user and rely solely on sudo. Back in the day KDE did not allow a GUI login as root (you could edit the KDE config to allow it) but did allow console logins to administer the system.

[rodgoslin]

Ah, nice to hear from another ex-Mandake user. Those were the days!

[Germ]

Yep. Fun times!

[doktor5000]

Please don't forget to mark the thread as solved, by editing the subject of the first post and prefix it with [SOLVED], thanks in advance.