Handbook Talk:AMD64/Installation/Finalizing

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A comment [[User:Larry|Larry]] 13:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
: A reply [[User:Sally|Sally]] 14:37, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
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Suggested Addition "How to Set Up a Desktop"

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This discussion is done as of October 27, 2021.

A link to a page with instructions toward building a desktop, similar to building the base Gentoo system.

It took me hours to figure out that a desktop needs:

1. a display manager
2. a window manager

and even after I had installed a DM and a WM, the desktop still wouldn't get going because I didn't know I had to install ..

...X11 drivers for video, keyboard and mouse! --doh!!!

With clear instructions like the base Gentoo system, time taken would have been at most another 30mins.

This would be most helpful for noobs like myself ;) . --Russelld (talk) 12:37, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to at least mention the building blocks of a desktop system in the Handbook. The Xorg guide used to serve the function of at least helping users get Xorg going (then building a WM or DE on top of it). I'll add a snippet mentioning the steps that are usually necessary to configure a graphical desktop. Thanks, Russelld ! --Maffblaster (talk) 17:28, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

This has finally been implemented; however I did so differently than originally stated before. The approach I took was to link our readers to other areas of the wiki that provide relevant documentation. Since Xorg is being phased out by Wayland, and many DEs are in process, it would unnecessarily increase maintenance burden to duplicate the efforts of other article around the wiki. See Special:Diff/1023639/1023669. --Maffblaster (talk) 17:56, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Stage files may be .xz

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This discussion is done as of January 2, 2019.

The command for removing a stage file from the root directory should be adjusted so that it works for .xz as well as .bz2 files.

--Rafo (talk) 22:00, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you! --Maffblaster (talk) 08:05, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Discord Server

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This discussion is done as of October 26, 2021.

Just found this on b.g.o.: bug #694010
--Charles17 (talk) 05:48, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

bug #694010 was voted on and closed as WONTFIX. This discussion is has ended; we will not be adding links to Discord servers (a closed source, closed stack software) to the Handbook or anywhere else on official Gentoo sites at this time. --Maffblaster (talk) 20:28, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Suggested addition of doas as a sudo alternative

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This discussion is done as of October 27, 2021.

I believe adding doas as a sudo alternative here would be beneficial, as it would only take about a line and it would be inline with the plethora of choices Gentoo gives to the user. --Linobigatti (talk) 01:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

This suggestion has been implemented as recommended. See Special:Diff/950178/1023639. Thanks! --Maffblaster (talk) 17:25, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Warn about similar passwords to root

Talk status

This discussion is done as of 2024-01-02.

In Adding a user for daily use section, warn about setting same or similar password to root user out of convenience. -- Gso321 (talk) 01:07, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Good suggestion. Implemented here: Special:Diff/1267587/1272180. --Maffblaster (talk) 06:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Suggested addition of adding user to cron group

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This discussion is done as of 2024-01-02.

I believe it would be beneficial to add a small section that said "If a cron provider was installed, then the users who wish to use it must be in the <cron> group". Something along those line I was thinking either here or in the "Installing tools" section. Lemon-Lime (talk)

Your suggestion has been implemented along with a few other improvements to the list of groups in the table. See Special:Diff/1272180/1272202. Thank you! --Maffblaster (talk) 07:32, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Suggest to disable root login after sudo or doas have been configured

Talk status

This discussion is done as of 2024-05-11.

In Adding a user for daily use section, for added security suggest to disable root login after sudo or doas have been configured. See references:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Sudo#Disable_root_login
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Security#Restricting_root_login
Talk:Sudo#disable_root_login
--Lucatrv (talk) 21:11, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

The root password can be deleted using sudo passwd -dl root. This is how Ubuntu does it.

— Waldo Lemmer 03:59, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

How does this sound?

Proposed changes - Please make edits here until a final revision is agreed upon.

To prevent possible threat actors from logging in as root, deleting the root password and/or disabling the root login can help improve security.

To disable root login:

root #passwd -l root

To delete the root password and disable login:

root #password -dl root

--csfore (talk) 19:09, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Fixed in Special:Diff/1278160/1298171, thanks!

--csfore (talk) 19:31, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Simplify the useradd command

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This discussion needs help.
Tip: To get this fixed sooner, use {{Proposal}}.

Please consider the following points:

• The '/etc/login.defs' file contains 'CREATE_HOME yes', so the '-m' option is not needed.
• The '/etc/default/useradd' file contains 'SHELL=/bin/bash', so the '-s /bin/bash' option is not needed.
• AFAIK it is not suggested to add all users to the 'users' group, see for instance here, here, and here.
• IMHO, unless the system administrator knows what he's doing (and in this case there's no need to suggest it), there is no need to add the ordinary "daily use" user to the 'wheel' group. Either 'sudo' or 'doas' can be configured to provide administrator rights to the user itself instead of to the 'wheel' group.

Therefore the suggested plain command to add a new user could be for instance:

useradd -G audio larry'

Finally, a note should explain that with 'systemd' some groups are not needed anymore, such as 'audio' (see here), so for the example above the command can just be:

useradd larry

--Lucatrv (talk) 22:22, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

audio is not in the table you linked. It is mentioned here. You seem to be correct that it's only required on non-systemd systems — we experienced this here. — Waldo Lemmer 05:49, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes thanks, I fixed the wrong link for new readers. I also added another reference for the third point ('users' group). --Lucatrv (talk) 12:10, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Typo on floppy drives

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This discussion is still ongoing as of 2024-07-02.

The following sentence has a typo:

Enable the user account to directly access ancient mechanical devices known floppy as drives. This group is not generally used on modern systems.

Should be changed to:

Enable the user account to directly access ancient mechanical devices known as floppy drives. This group is not generally used on modern systems.