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changing login name [solved]


Drake
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um i want to change my login name (not make a new one) to something else. In user admin i can do this but is it safe to do so?

 

would i just change my login name? and leave the home directory as it is? or do i change both and the system renames everything?

 

thanks

 

[moved from Installing Mandrake by spinynorman]

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It is safe if you do it the right way.

 

This is how I would have done it:

 

Lets supose I have a user named foobar that I want to be named new foobar, so as root first I change the user's first group (mandrake puts each new user into it's own group); then I rename the user's account to the new name telling the system how its going to be named its home directory:

 

~# groupmod -n newfoobar foobar
~# usermod -l newfoobar -d /home/newfoobar -m -g newfoobar foobar

 

Check the man pages of groupmod and usermod to see what are each option and to check if you'll have to use some other options to fit your needs.

 

HTH

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Hi again:

Just adding to what aru has said...

 

It is a good idea to have more than one account, especially as a noobie to linux since its practically impossible to wreck linux from a user account but you can quite happily mess up your own settings... it will always ask for a password before doing anytihng global !

 

accounts like test and/or games are a good idea .. if you test a theme etc. you can test if first on one user...

 

You can also keep a backup of your settings etc. for a user ...

 

There is a thread in tips n tricks for new Mandrake users on a few ideas people have made after you have installed ...

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yup well your method works Aru.

 

The only 'problem' as such was that things like all the applications that somehow use a path to your old directories need to be reconfigured eg if you have selected a background and altered your startup file to remember the background you have to tell it your background is now elsewhere, and firefox configuration for telling it where to download files has to be changed.

 

Wasnt much of a problem for me as i hadnt configured much specific to my folders. :thanks:

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The only 'problem' as such was that things like all the applications that somehow use a path to your old directories need to be reconfigured eg if you have selected a background and altered your startup file to remember the background you have to tell it your background is now elsewhere, and firefox configuration for telling it where to download files has to be changed

next time use either ~/ or ${HOME} (or even /home/${USER}) always to refer to your user's home directory and then you'll avoid such problems... and where this advice can't be applied you also could try some sort of "egrep + sed" combination to quick fix it ;)

Edited by aru
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