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I have recently installed Debian 504 AMD64, when I try to access "System" --> "Administration" --> "Users and groups" logged in as root, I get the following message:
"The configuration could not be loaded. You are not allowed to access the system configuration."
The system does not even ask for a password and the result is the same if I log in as a normal user.
I have installed from a single ISO DVD downloaded from the internet and read the DVDs of my previous Debian distro to install packages not included on DVD 1 of Debian 504 although I do not think this unusual approach can have any effect on the installation.
Could anyone tell me what I should do? I suspect I'll have to boot in single user mode but I have never done any troubleshooting at the command line.
Command line isn't too bad. I susp[ect you have a gnome problem.
System --> Administration --> users and groups. Can you see where that shortcut points to?
in a terminal, try 'man useradd' or try this exact line
useradd -d /home/twerp -g users -G root,disk,uucp,wheel -s /bin/bash twerp
You may have to mkdir /home/twerp and change it's permissions
chown twerp:users /home/twerp
Just see if it works. Then you can set a password - as root, passwd twerp, log in, and userdel to remove it.
Ok, then your problem is with some stupid script in gnome. Often you get a clue because errors go to stdout. so go into gnome, and hit System-->Administration and click on users & groups once or twice. then look on stdout (Ctrl_Alt_F1 usually) and try dmesg |tail, and tail /var/log/messages and look for gnome complaining.
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