Salix Forums

I have had this problem for some time when I install salix 14.2: The installation program skips usersetup and I can't access the desktop because the root user is disabled and there is no "normal" user registered after the installation of the system. I believe that in previous versions 14.0 and 14.1 the problem already existed.

Usersetup is part of salix-tools, so I put this problem in your knowledge in this forum and not in one of slackware.

The installation language is "spanish-spain" from an usb or from a DVD drive connected by usb and with usb keyboard and the different computer screens had resolutions from 1024x600 to 1280x800 no more and no less. I think that once usersetup worked in the installation in a computer with dvd drive by IDE interface and 4:3 screen with 1024x768 resolution, but a long time ago and I do not remember exactly.

Usersetup fails if it opens in a terminal less than 60x17 characters. It is possible that the problem lies in that.

The error message in a terminal resized to 60x16 characters.
"Can't make new window at (0,-1), size (16,60)."
I haven't been able to capture the exact error message in the installation program, but I have seen that it starts with the "can't make... etc...".

I have tried to make a "chroot ." inside /mnt/sda1 after the installation and before initial reboot and run usersetup, but it fails again, so I changed the root password before restarting and I have made login init 3 within /etc/inittab and that way there are more rows and columns in the terminal and then usersetup works to register the new "normal" user and enter the desktop and work normally after put init 4 on inittab or init 3 + startx.

Thank you for your time and forgive my poor written English, since I am Spanish-speaking and this is translated with deepl.com. Yes, I understand English, but writing it is another story and it's my first post...

I'm afraid this is a problem with the spanish translation in the iso. Some messages are just too big to fit on screen and dialog, the program that is used to create the dialogs, stops working if it cannot fit everything on screen.

As far as I can see, the long spanish texts have already been replaced by shorter ones in a subsequent salixtools package update.

So, in any new iso, it *should* be fixed. For the 14.2 iso, unfortunately, it seems that in order to run usersetup at the end of the installation properly is to do the installation in english, and then switch to spanish once the system is installed using localesetup.

Or, at the end of installation, exit the installation (not reboot), chroot to the installed system and run the adduser script.

Or, chroot and change the language before running usersetup: Or, do what you did with init 3...

Oh, yes this seen to works... the screen on terminal is little than in spanish version and dont fail. Thats it.

I test it in the next installation of 14.2.

What worries me is if anything is misconfigured when using usersetup outside the installation program and some vulnerability or security flaw is created in the resulting system.

Thank you all for all your work and you, Gapan for the answer. Salix is a really good distro, at the same time simple in its construction and easy to maintain for people with average knowledge like me. I wrote this on atom n466 1.6ghz 2gb ram on salix 14.2 x86. The hd is an ssd msata of 240GB, but before was of 64GB. I have been using salix for more than 8 or 10 years, I don't remember when i start with 13.1 or 13.37 version...