Hi,

A while back I used Mandrake 8.1, but gave up after not being able to get my 3 monitors working. Have just installed 9.1 and it's great! The monitors worked off the bat and I managed to get everything setup the way I want it. Just getting comfortable enough to format me Windows partitions when a couple of problems have arisen.

First, I have a user account and the root account. Everything was fine, log into X as user and if I need to do anything I can SU in terminal or a GUI function (Userdrake/Netconf etc) will ask for the root password. Well, that was fine, but now it won't accept the password. I thought that something may have gone wrong with the psswd file, but I rebooted into failsafe and logged in to root fine. It only seems to be when I'm in X that there is a problem. I've tried in CAPS, Caps but can't get it to accept it.

Also when it was working I was in File Manager - Super User and was changing the accress rights to certain directories. I ticked the box to apply the change to all files and subdirectories, but it didn't seem to do it.

And how to you log into X as root? It only gives my account as an option and I can't find a around it...

Anyhelp would be greatly appreciated as I really though I'd got on top of things for a minute there..I don't want to get frustrted and throw in the towel again.

Thanks

TONY

I am not a Mandrake expert, so I can't help you with the root/X permission problem.

However, I can tell you how to login X as root

You can try Ctrl+Alt+BackSpace, that will kill X.
Then login as root and type startx.

You can also use the startx command when Mandrake boots in failsafe.

You need to either change the settings for the Kde Display Manager, but that needs the root password, or switch from MdkDM to the real KDM, again needing root access to install the package.
Or you can try Ctrl+Alt+F1 to log in as root, then startx.

"Also when it was working I was in File Manager - Super User and was changing the accress rights to certain directories. I ticked the box to apply the change to all files and subdirectories, but it didn't seem to do it."

A peculiarity of this command is that if no change is made to the directory then no change is made to the subdirectories and files. So If you make a change to the directory and then say, "Oops I meant to change everything." and then apply the changes to all files and subdirectories then nothing actually changes on the "apply all" command.

"And how to you log into X as root?"

One way is to log in as root and then issue startx.

"but now it won't accept the password"

Whether or not a user can su to root is an option. Log in as root and use the ControlCenter to check whether or not users can su to root.

As far as logging in as root from the gui login you need to go into the KDE Control center and choose login manager, then put an x by root, now root will show up at the gui login screen.

As for the changing permissions of a directory and all files and subdirectories don't use the Window manager at a console or xterm as root type chmod -R xxx /directory/name this will change the permissions of all files and sub-directories.

As far as the su something must have been in one of the directories that you changed permissions on.

HTH

Thanks for the replies, i'll try those out in a bit.

I was having a fiddle earlier though and it's just making less and less sense to me.

Now, I can login as root in failsafe, but if I boot as normal and try to login as root is won't accept the password. It won't accept the root password for SU and if I login as myself and open a terminal, I can't change users to root as that won't accept the password either.

If I boot in failsafe I can login as root, change user to me and when I try to change back to root it says invalid password Grrrrr!!

I'll have a go at your sugestions now...fingers crossed.

You might be able to use some of the advice in this thread where somebody had lost their root password, maybe you can reset the password as suggested http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=71914

Good Luck

make sure the user is valid and is in the sudoers file