First of all I want to make a distinction between:

Login screen name/Sign in Screenname & Login screenpassword

-------------AND---------------------

username & password

THEY'RE not necessarily the same! Especially in the Debian 9 and Debian 10 and I think Mint 16+ and Ubuntu too. This may seem like an obvious distinction for others, but when trying to find the solution to this problem there is confusion!


Like most questions I ask when trying to improve my PC, its basically a documentation of what went wrong as I remember some of the changes I made. After trying to improve in 1 area, some crappy glitch, bug, or error fails in others.

Its difficult for me to backtrack the sequence of upgrades through synaptic package manager that did this but it was something to do with multiple desktop gui's installed (kde, xfce, cinnamon, gnome) perhaps? It all started when Debian 9 stretch was installed trying various upgrades to the old cinnamon gui desktop login or upgrade that failed, had a broken dependencies that beget more errors as I installed as much as I could while I was tinkering with upgrades in synaptic package manager.


PROBLEM: The splash screen and login screen failed to load and dumped me onto terminal to the point where all I could do to run startx through xfce in my root account.

AFTER THAT, I decided to do an entire Debian 9 Stretch to Debian 10 Buster full upgrade.

NOW AFTER installing Debian 10 Buster, the login screen/signin screen loads, but I still can only login with root and root password and not my username account and user password with all my old preferences and customizations! Changing the username password doesn't work for the sign in /login screen password!

I've found many instructions on how to find all the usernmanes, and change a username password, but this is not the same as the loginscreen name and password! (both of which vanished)! Its a damn pity and shame this distinction is not made in other forums and the documentation really sucks. I will get around to posting more documentation of this problem as I solve it. There's posts revolving around the editing Grub that might be the problem, but I'm not certain!

In the meantime. Please drop thoughts or comments and ideas about a solution. We'd all apreciate that!

I hate to disagree but there is no separate user for the login manager. Once it dumps you to terminal can you sign in with your regular username/password?

If so look at this https://askubuntu.com/questions/1296...pt-my-password

Its not working for me like THAT permaroot!

I've done this: " HowTo: Change Password of Specific User Account In Linux" https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-...ssword-how-to/

many, many, many times. AFTER CHANGING my username alias "johndoediddlerdink" password with THESE INSTRUCTIONS:

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-...ssword-how-to/

# passwd johndoediddlerdink

OR

$ sudo passwd johndoediddlerdink

Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully



THEN logging out and TYPING "johndoediddlerdink" in the Username box & THE Password I just updated while in ROOT TERMINAL:

typed in this:

https://i.ibb.co/dsvmTwX/LOGINSCREEN.png

https://i.ibb.co/dsvmTwX/LOGINSCREEN.png

DOES NOT WORK!

I don’t think you understood me.

After the username and password FAILS for you, you said it dropped you in the black tty terminal to login, correct?

The only way to login in through typing in username "root"

and then using the root password.

That's what I meant!

username alias "johndoediddlerdink"

and the corrected password for johndoediddlerdink while in terminal logged in with root is no good after I logout and try and log back in with username johndoediddlerdink

Would you try in root terminal

Thank You! I kind knew it was ridiculously simple but I don't understand why username "root" wasn't the Overarching superuser and that



"su -l "

made such a difference.

Just curious Tonus, why would this work and changing the users passwd as root user didn’t?

That's to try to narrow the problem : I think the problem could be caused by keyboard layouts or locale.
From the man page, the -l option (as - alone or --login)
"Provide an environment similar to what the user would expect had the user logged-in directly. "

Happy I could help.