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I have created an iso using Pinguy Builder and used both Startup Disk Creator and Etcher to create bootable usb external hard drive. No errors, boots ok, but cannot log in. My original Ubuntu installation that I used to create the iso displays my name, ie John Smith and just asks for password, it shows also as Guest Session. My user directory is john and in terminal mode it shows the prompt as john@john-HP-Notebook. If i type in whoami it tells me i am john.

I have tried all combinations using john, john@john-HP-Notebook, guest and am aware linux is case sensitive, I have also tried defaults like Ubuntu/blank, ubuntu/blank, ubuntu/ubuntu, Ubuntu/ubuntu - I can log in easily on the system from which the iso was created but cannot log in on the system created from the iso - lost for ideas - please help - thanks guys

On further investigation it seems with Pinguy builder if you use dist option there is no user or pass required when you boot from usb / cd but if you use backup you have tom enter the user/pass of the system from which the iso was created - however it does not actually match any combinations so you cannot log in to your backed up system - furthermore it then remembers these settings so after doing a backup dist systems also require user / pass of original system which seems to be a bug - if you create a new distribution you should not have to give your user / pass away to all users - but does not really matter as you cannot log in even with your user / pass so if anyone knows what pinguy builder backup uses as user pass that will be great so I can actually use my backed up system......

ryanw
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kerry
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  • what're your version ubuntu? – ryanw Jan 16 '17 at 04:14
  • @ryanw - 16.04 - amending question to show this - thanks – kerry Jan 16 '17 at 04:25
  • Try the first point release, 16.04.1 LTS. It is debugged and polished, many bugs are squashed compared to the original 16.04 LTS. It the live session works correctly, 'Try Ubuntu', booted from USB, you will need no log in, you should arrive at the desktop directly. (And if you log out, the user ID is `ubuntu` and you can press the Enter key directly (no password)). Did you check the md5sum of the iso file? – sudodus Jan 16 '17 at 05:55
  • @sudodus - I am new to ubuntu and linux - can you please expand on 'did you check the md5sum' and how can I upgrade to 16.04.01without reinstalling and losing data. To be clear the original ubuntu installed fine with no log in. This is an iso created from my installation with the applications I have installed. The iso was created from my existing ubuntu using pinguy builder - this is not a new ubuntu installation - thanks – kerry Jan 16 '17 at 06:16
  • Sorry, I did not notice that you are booting from your own custom iso file. I think you should ask the people who develop and maintain the Pinguy builder how to create a USB boot drive from it. - md5sum is a linux program. There is a corresponding program in Windows, md5summer. The method is described at this link and links from it, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes, but it is not relevant, when you have your own iso file. – sudodus Jan 16 '17 at 06:52
  • @sudodus - no problem - I actually know how to create a usb boot drive and have done that - the problem is if I burn a CD using Brasero it just asks for password same as live system but Brasero only does CDs if I want usb I have to use Startup Disk Creator or Etcher - they create bootable usb but ask for use and pass and nothing I enter will let me log in.... – kerry Jan 16 '17 at 07:09
  • There are other tools to create a USB boot drive. You can try Unetbootin, Rufus (in Windows), Disks, mkusb. There are two alternatives with mkusb - the standard method clones the iso file, which should give the same result as Disks (and the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator in Ubuntu 16.04 and later, but not earlier versions of the Startup Disk Creator). The method in mkusb for persistent live drives might or might not work, depending on the boot structure of your custom iso file. But maybe it will at least let you boot live. – sudodus Jan 16 '17 at 07:36
  • @sudodus - actually I dont think it is a Pinguy issue - the first 2 live cd i created dont ask for username - but now every cd or usb i use asks user / pass - the issue is what is the user and pass - i cannot figure it out – kerry Jan 16 '17 at 08:12
  • Try with "guest" (without quotes) for username . When prompted for password leave it blank and click OK or press enter button. – sudodus Jan 16 '17 at 08:15

1 Answers1

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This Solved it for me:

The problem is that VirtualBox sets up users (vbox_sf for shared folders) as userid 999. But casper (the app that controls the "live cd system") hard codes the Pinguy Builder userid as 999 also! So this means that the "live" user isn't ever created (since 999 already exists!). The solution is to give a different uid to the casper created user.

This terminal command will make the change for you automagically:

sed -i -e 's@user-uid [0-9]*@user-uid 990@' /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/casper-bottom/25adduser

To interpret this command, in the 25adduser file, I am changing "user-uid 999" to "user-uid 990". You can just manually make that edit if you want but thought others may enjoy the sed one-liner to do it automagically.

After this fix, I am no longer faced with the "login screen" when starting the live system: it auto-logs-in just as it should!

There really should be a casper patch to move away from the hard-coded uid, maybe it could be a Pinguy Builder variable in /etc/PinguyBuilder.conf but for now the hack to change that uid to something OTHER THAN 999 seems to work!

Reference: http://disq.us/p/12n951t

userDepth
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Matt Zabojnik
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