I am running Linux Mint 3.1 off of a flash drive and am having trouble logging in as root at the login screen(Not Terminal/Shell). I understand that because it is derived from Ubuntu that you are not supposed to be able to do this. I understand the consequences and am willing to take the risks. I do not want to use the sudo commands, this is not what I am asking. It has been done and I am trying to figure out how. If you can help I would much appreciate it; thank you in advance.

p.s. Sorry for being so anal but everywhere I go people go on about how not being able to login to root is a good thing, and frankly they tend to get off topic and I never get answers. LQ has been very helpful in the past and I hope that you can help.

Try "sudo su -". It will do the same thing as logging in as root.

I understand what the sudo commands do and how to use them, and I have. I DO NOT want to use the terminal, I use it all the time and someone on another forum figured out how use the login screen to become root using a GUI, I may sound like a noob but this is what I am looking for. If u can help I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

Come on! I need my computer back. Can somebody read this guy's entire question and answer it?

1) Login as the regular user and open a terminal and run the command stated above

2) Once in the root shell assign a password to root

OR

Just do it with sudo

The fact that someone told you to "sudo su -" should have been enough for you to realize "hey once I'm in the root shell I can assign a password to root and be able to login!"

Also it took me 2 seconds to find this on google by typing "root account Ubuntu" (it was the second link)

http://www.ducea.com/2006/06/21/ubun...-root-account/

-C

as you know the root account is disabled by default but it is enabled in terminal so now I tried bypassing the default setting...

open terminal with normal user account..
type
$ sudo su -
and give the password
now terminal comes in root mode
#
now type
# pkill gdm
now u enterd into a text mode login
again login as normal user
then do
$ sudo su -
give passwd
now type
# startx
this will make u login as root graphically

That's good because, let's make it clear, what you want to do does go against a lot of knowledgeable people's advice. Still, if you are making an informed decision then that's fine. I trust you have a good, robust root password?

Yes. It's $|_|93?\1\+3\]o <#^[/v\3?$.

I'll add here, that when I was using Ubuntu, 9.04 that in addition to setting the root password I still had to configure gdm to allow me to login as root from the login window. Without the second part I was only able to login as root from the terminal. Allowing graphical root login was done in Ubuntu under:

System --> Preferences/Administration (I can't remember which) --> login windows --> allow administrator logins (or something to that effect, it didn't say root, it said "administrator").

sudo startx -- :1