Mint 19.3 login only as user, not as administrator
 

I am a real newbie. In learning, I created a practice user "jared" and gave him the password "jared". NOW, when my Microsoft Surface Pro 2 having only Linux Mint 19.3 Mate residing thereon, will not let me login as anyone but "jared" with "jared" as password. It boots up with the computer name and it will not authenticate on anything BUT "jared". Nowhere is there a place to login as administrator or "su".

So, how to get out of this pickle? Would be so grateful for some help. Thanks.

I found a few hits when searching for "Mint disable auto login 19.3". Please do the same. Once you complete that, you should get a login screen when you log in.

Now, anything weird like you never set a root password, or you forgot it? Because using su, sudo, or logging in as root is helpful to do. Meanwhile you should login as your username on a regular basis, but use sudo or root privileges for things like software installations, updates, or other administrative things on your system.

Mint is a Debian derivative and as such does not have an administrator or root account. You can only log in as a normal user, in your case, "jared". However...

To elevate your privileges to "root" or administrator" level you need to use sudo.
my :twocents:

Play Bonny!

:hattip:

Umm... just wondering, but is this something new in Debian? I'm asking because years ago I used to run Debian and many Debian derivatives on my systems. I ALWAYS had a root account and used su rather than sudo, which I had disabled.


https://wiki.debian.org/Root

Kinda Solved but now has auto sign in with no password
 

I tried "suspending" jared's session. Then I restarted/rebooted and it booted straight to my desktop without requirement for ANY sign-in. It does not matter in the "Change User Password" if the check box for "Don't ask for password on login" is checked or not checked and I did change my password. No, "weird stuff" like having no password, etc.

Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on debian. By default, the root account is locked in Ubuntu/Mint but is not with debian. The user that was created when you installed Mint is the administrator and has sudo privileges to run root commands.

Mint does have an autologin option but you still need to use your password when running sudo commands.

autologin is configured in your /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf file.

Thank you @michaelk. That answered my question above. :)

Inability to require login for Administrator Mint 19.3
 

SOLVED - Inability to require login and password for Administrator in Linux Mint 19.3 in GUI (want to learn bash command line for this):

Control Center > Login Window > Enter Password > Set "Manual Login" to "On" > Under "Automatic Login" clear the username box.

Glad you got it squared away, @drownk. Sorry we strayed a bit off-topic from your original query.

Have a great weekend!

~Eric

Glad you have resolved it.

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I stand corrected. I'd always thought that as Mint and Ubuntu were derived from Debian and that a root account was not required and root accounts related to RedHat and it's derivatives in the main.

Thanks for the heads up.

Play Bonny!

:hattip: