Okay, so I'm really new to linux, and thought it would be easy to install everything... I got Amigo so I could use it in the car computer I'm building for multi-media purposes (let me know if there is something better for this use). I made a MS-DOS floppy, managed to find the right partition to \linux\loadlin etc. on, but when it was ready to boot Linux, obviously it came up with

Amigo Login:

Password:

How do I turn this off? Or, what do I type in/what file do I open to edit this?!?!

Jeff

Not sure what amigo is. However with the average Linux/Unix installation you are prompted to set a "root" password during the install. On some you are also prompted to create non-root user and password.

Assuming you had no prompt for password during the install you may be able to just hit enter. If you did have such a prompt you'll need to use the password you had input at that point.

Note that Linux is case sensitive so a password of "billybob" would be different than billyBob, Billybob, biLLybob etc...

Virtually all GNU/Linuces have this security feature. Under most circumstances you do not want to defeat it.

During installation you should have been asked ... Oops, jlightner posted before i finished this. As usual, he's right on.

As for Amigo, I found this link http://www.amigolinux.org/index.htm here: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links

Easy, first time login as user 'root' to finish any configuration.
That means that where you see 'Amigo Login:', you should type 'root' (without the quote marks) and hit ENTER.
Then, when you see 'Password:', just hit ENTER again. At first root has no password. This is NOT a secure condition for your installation. If you worry at all about security, you'll want to run 'passwd' to create a password for 'root' at some point.

The same goes for the user named 'amigo'.

Linux is a multi-user system from the ground up. 'root' is the system administator and basically 'owns' it all. Normal users are, by default, restricted from doing many things that other OS's allow anyone to do, such as mount/unmount devices, or execute any program, or read any file. Under Linux 'root' can restrict any/all of these.

While it IS possible to do away with login altogether, it may be unsafe, or inconvenient. Why? Rescue systems, many Live-CD's and specialty distros boot by default as UID 0 -that's User ID Zero, or 'root'. When logged in as 'root', your system is suceptible to attacks. Never connect to unsafe networks while logged in as 'root'!
You CAN arrange an autologin for a certain user, but that's very unsafe locally -anyone can boot up your machine and be logged in.

Now, much of the 'friendliness' of all Amigo distros lies in the changing of the permissions and ownership of a few key configuration files. I set up a 3-tiered permission system with 'root' as superuser, normal users are still setup as described above -poor worms that can't even mount that floppy they have with that cool .pif file!
The user 'amigo' is part of a user group which has most of the same rights as 'root'. This group is called 'wheel' (GID 10 Group ID). I call it the poweruser group.

Files used:
User and Group ID's and passwords are in:
/etc/shadow
/etc/passwd
/etc/group

Permissions are controlled by:
/etc/sudoers

The default user account, that is 'amigo', is set up with you, the owner, in mind. Since you shouldn't go online as root, you need at least one user account. For convenience, 'amigo' already has special rights.

To create a custom poweruser account for yourself, from an xterm, as 'root', run 'adduser' and answer the questions. Accept the default users group assignment of 100, but add Group 10 in the next question for extra groups.

Also create a normal user account without including it in Group 10 (wheel) if you want to see the difference, or for your little brother, or whatever.

Note: Usernames should have NO Capital letters or special characters. And passwords SHOULD have at least one of each and be 5-6 characters. Otherwise adduser will complain of 'weak' passwords.

Home directories:
each user gets a "home" directory created as a subdir in /home. User 'root' already has his home dir in /root

Setting permissions -slow down if you are a newbie. The proper way to change permissions is to run 'visudo' from the terminal. But that assumes you know how to use 'vi', even that you know what 'vi' is. Use the above steps until you get comfy.
You can see the way the permissions are setup by viewing the /etc/sudoers file with:
'less /etc/sudoers' -as 'root', from terminal.

Note: Amigo2 is a semi-pre-installed environment which has no package selection or root password configuration on first installation.
It does include auto configuration of two very basic and essential files:
/etc/X11/XF86Config -graphics configuration
and
/etc/fstab -hard drive, floppy, cdrom drive configs