Is it possible to change the default user id of the first user before installing opensuse?

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi,
is there a way (some kind of command or option you can type in the bootoption field before starting the installation of opensuse) to enforce a differend user id (uid) for the first user (the first normal user, not the root) created during the installation process?

I want to change it from the default 1000 to something different.

I know i can change it after the installation, but i wonder if it is possible to change it right at the moment it got created.

#2

If you have a separate “/home” partition, just create the initial user with whatever uid you want. As far as I know, the installer first checks for an existing home directory, and uses the uid of that home directory. It goes with the default it there isn’t a home directory.

Alternatively, just make the first user a dummy user, and create your real user later.

#3

On 2014-02-12 02:26, sabo007 wrote:

> I know i can change it after the installation, but i wonder if it is
> possible to change it right at the moment it got created.

AFAIK, not from the installer, no.

Mmmmm… There might be a way.

If you are installing over a previous install, when asked for users you
can tell it to import data from the previous install. At that point, it
reads the passwd files of that partition.

If that passwd file says that there is a user named bingo with uid 5315,
fine, it will use that.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#4

Ok thank you both.

#5

I’ll add a comment on experience.

I normally setup three users:

  1. A “support” account, intended to only use “icewm” or command line, and there to fix broken stuff;
  2. My normal account, where I login to KDE.
  3. A test account, where I can experiment and break things, with no serious consequences. I use the test account for playing with Gnome.

Those users currently have UID of 1000, 1001, 1002. However, for many years, I was using 600,601 and 696. And the installer would always get that correct, because it was finding the home directory with those UIDs. It is only around 1 year, since I changed to the 1000,1001,1002 uids.

#6

Yes. If you change the user number of an existing user before you start the install and do not use the same user name during the install, you will have no problems because there will be a vacant user number and a non-matching user name for the installer to use as the first user at install. I did it two installs back without any problems.