How to hide a user?

General system Newbie
1

Hi,

I would like to hide an user in the splash screen.

Could you explain me how to do that ?

Many thanks in advance.

Cordialement,

PJN

2

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SDDM#Configuration
https://man.archlinux.org/man/sddm.conf.5
With the second link look for HideUser

3

Thank you for your fast reply,

In fact, i am wondering if I must hide the “admin” account on the login screen since the other accounts are “standard” account.

For example, when logged in a standard account, how can I achieve with administrator tasks (the sudo command send me that the account is not in the sudousers).

My apology, but I am a newbie in Linux (I found EndeavourOS a great distribution by the way).

Many thanks again,

Cordialement,

PJN

4

I think you are thinking in Windows terms, with Linux an admin account is one with sudo privilages and a standard account is an account without. There is also the root account which is hidden by default.

5

So, I can delete the “admin” account i created ?

But, in this case, how to enter the root account in a standard session ?

6

I think you are misunderstanding what I was trying to point out. Use the Admin account for anything you need to do and sudo to elevate its privilages.
You cannot enter the root account in a standard session, it is the whole purpose of that sort of account.

7

Ok !

I understand.
So, I keep my admin account with a strong password to to all the “sensible” tasks.
And for regular use I log in a standard account.
I am right ?

I come frome MacOS (not windows).

Many thanks,

Cordialement,

PJN

8

Wait a bit. So during install, you’ve made an account for admin use, then, after install you’ve made another one for normal use, correct?

9

On my system I only have 2 Admin accounts (1 I keep without any changes just in case something goes wrong in the other). You can use an admin account just like a standard account the only differnce is that you can elevate its privalages with root when needed.
If you have other people who use your computer you should just make them a standard account unless you fully trust them to make changes to the system.

2 Likes
10

To hopefully clarify what @smokey has said so far:

  • “Admin” on macOS or Windows is equal to “root” on Linux.
  • Your “regular” user on Linux is able to update/upgrade/install/remove apps.
  • Your regular user does this by requesting temporary permission from “root”.
  • The person who usually updates the device is usually the “regular” user, while “standard” users are usually people like kids, or inexperienced users.
  • A “standard” user does not have the ability to make changes that affect others.
  • Like on Windows/macOS, you pretty much never log into the “root” account from the account selection screen (login/display manager) unless you are having issues with your “regular” user account.
2 Likes
11

This is explained a lot clearer than I did.

1 Like
12

Yes, during the installation, I created an user « admin » with a strong password and the same password for the « administrator ».
Wrong ?

Anyway, many thanks to all of you for your kindness regarding a newbie coming from macOS!

Cordialement,

PJN

13

This “admin” user you’ve made during the install process is the user the OS expects you to use normally. The “administrator” account is created automatically. Its name is root and the password is the same as your user’s password since you’ve enabled that option during the install process, if I understood you correctly.

It you want to make a system wide change, like installing a program or package, as they’re named around these parts, you would want to temporarily gain administrator privileges or root privileges. You do this by adding the prefix sudo before the command you want to run. So, as an example, let’s say I want to install Discord. To do so, I will type in the console app sudo pacman -S discord. Here’s a break down of the command:

  • sudo gives the user that requested it temporary root privileges.
  • pacman is the package manager preinstalled by the operating system. Since EndeavourOS is based on Arch Linux, this is the package manager found in Arch Linux as well. There are many different package managers out there, but EndeavourOS uses pacman. They can’t really be changed without changing the distribution of Linux you use.
  • -S is the operation named sync in the documentation. This is the main operation for installing a package in Arch Linux and EndeavourOS. It will search the remote repositories available and install the package and its required dependencies automatically.
  • discord is the name of the package I want to install. If you can’t find a package, search it up online or use the -Ss command to search it in the available repositories; note that you don’t need root privileges to use -Ss.

I apologize for the info dump I’ve gave you, but I felt it is necessary to explain these things to you.

2 Likes
14

Yes, that is exactly what I have done.
Is it safe to give the same password to the admin user and the root user ?

15

I have always done it like this and nothing bad happened. I’m not sure if it is okay or not, though. Hopefully someone more experienced can chime in.

16

The only thing I’ve run into is root’s password doesn’t change if you change the password on your other account. 99% of the time this won’t matter but occasionally I’ve needed root instead of just sudo. Luckily I had the original in my password manager and it can also be changed later.

17

You understood me perfectly !
However, I think it’s better to work with a standard “user” session (as I used to do with macOS).
Thank you for your very clear and useful explanation.

I’m running EOS on a MacMini 2014 and it’s perfect.
The next challenge is to install EOS on a MacBook 12" (10,1) (not a MacBook Pro or air).

Cordialement,

PJN

18

Just thought of the best way to explain the accounts in linux - think of it like a monarchy
Queen/King - Root
Government - Admin
Public - Normal user