Is Root Dead?
 

OK. So last night I was sick of Mandrake 9.1 and I wanted to install RedHad 9 over it. I have successfully installed RedHat in the past with no problems. For some reason, however, after I installed RedHat, got a login prompt, and put in 'root' and my password it just gave me another login screen. When it first did this I decided to reinstall and use the graphical login. It let me in as root and let me configure my system but when I rebooted and went to login on the GUI it basically did the same thing. I have looked and looked on this forum (maybe this is the wrong one) but haven't found any sort of a problem like this. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Phekno

Do you mean you install over top of it or did you format the partitions and then install?

Formatted....then reinstalled.

I think by default, it won't let you login as root thru the GUI interface. Try doing a ctrl-alt-F2 to a console login and login as root there? If that works, that was the problem. I don't ever suggest logging into X as root, its bad security practice and shouldn't be necessary anyways. Create a regular user, use su or setup sudo to gain admin privileges.

I am able to log in as root in redhat grafically. I did this when I wold want to use the graphical text editer.

I have been trying to get used to vi though

The first time in installed RedHat I made sure that it would start with just a text prompt. Even with that I wasn't able to login as root. And don't think it's because I forgot my password or forgot to turn caps lock off or anything like that because I checked. Plus when I reinstalled and allowed it to start with the graphical interface what it does is go through a configuration type thing that allows you to specify a user. I also wasn't able to login as this user.