Passwords don't work on remaster

[enwent]

I've been using PCLinuxOS since version 0.90 and continue to be impressed by both the system and its community.  I've even talked a few good friends into dropping Windows and switching to Linux.   

After successfully making 20 or 30 remasters for myself and others, I recently encountered a serious problem I've never seen before.  I installed PCLOS LXDE on an Atom-based bookshelf machine, then used mylivecd to make a new ISO.  Oddly, my new live disk (burned slowly and verified successfully) doesn't recognize my user or root passwords, though it works perfectly otherwise.  If I run passwd as user and enter the password that works on the installation, I get Authentication token manipulation error.  If I run su and enter the root password, I get incorrect password; entering "root" fails similarly.  I have no idea why, but two successive remasters from this system have behaved this way; it makes the remaster pretty useless.

Also, I have a minor question about remastering and keyboards.  According to the help file for mylivecd, I can specify the keyboard layout when I make my new ISO.  I looked in /usr/share for the keymaps (among other places) and didn't see them.  Can someone please tell me where they are?  Also, do I need to specify the complete path or just the keymap's filename?

Finally, I have one more question: I'm not concerned about the size of my remaster, so will the live system run faster if I specify GZIP (or something else) rather than LZMA?
   
Any help, especially with the password problem, I will appreciate greatly.  Thank you!

[djohnston]

Since version 0.90? Didn't know there was one. Well, a long lost welcome, then.

The keymaps are stored by hardware category in /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/dvorak, /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty, etc. Look in the correct subdirectory for your keyboard hardware type for the nationality version.

As far as changing the passwords on a live CD, it can't be done. I just tried it on LXDE 2012.06, automatically logged in as guest. The tokens are updated, alright. But, once I logout and login again, neither the old or the new password will work. I wonder if it's something to do with the bookshelf machine's keyboard. Without knowing the make and model, it's a moot point. Look in PCC > Hardware > Set up the keyboard layout. Whatever is already selected there is what is being used at the time you remaster.

Which LXDE iso did you install from, 2012.01 or 2012.06? What did you change the German keyboard layout to?

[enwent]

Thank you, djohnston!  I installed from 2012.01, as this was a few weeks ago.  For the hard-drive install, I chose the Dvorak-US keymap, and this is selected by default when I boot the remastered live CD.  I'm hoping, though, that by specifying the keymap when I run mylivecd, I can dispense with the boot-time prompt.  I'd like to be able to use the live CD on a headless system, and I can't do that unless it finishes booting without input.
   
I guess I wasn't clear about my password problem; I was trying to say that I don't know what the passwords are for my remaster.  On the live CD, of course, the root password is "root," on my hard-drive installation it's "example," but when I boot my remastered live CD, neither "root" nor "exapmle" works, so I can't run anything that needs root access.  In fact, had I not configured auto-login for my user account, I'd be unable to reach the desktop, because the remastered live CD won't take my user password, either.

In the past, each of my remasters recognized the passwords from the hard-drive installation I used to create it.  This one seems to have invented its own passwords, and left me out of the secret.   

[Just17]

Is this password problem repeatable on several remasters?

Is it possibly a glitch in building the remaster?

will the live system run faster if I specify GZIP (or something else) rather than LZMA?

I have only opinion .....  I would expect it to run faster but I don't know.

[enwent]

ROFL!!  Operator error, of course!  Serves me right for taking bad advice...

During my youth, a formidable geek many years my elder advised that I should always enter my passwords with capslock on, so that somebody watching me might get the keystrokes but still be unable to correctly enter the password.  I thought it sounded hokey at the time, but I was just a dumb kid, so I took his advice.

I know, of course, that it's a good idea to combine upper and lower case letters with numerals and symbols in a password, so I do that.  My password is (not really, but this is a strict analogue):

2p7Hx5^      (shift for h and caret)

Entered with capslock on, of course, that becomes:

2P7hX5^

But things get interesting when you combine capslock with remote control.  You can't change the capslock status of the remote machine; it's always in whatever state you left it.  On my live CD, it was off.  Now see what happened when I tried to enter my password remotely:

2P7HX5^      remote capslock off, LOCAL ON

Every letter entered on the remote machine was capital; the local shift key had no effect!  I noticed this when I tried typing my password into a text document, and the light came on.  I turned off capslock on the local (controlling) machine, knowing it was off on the live system, then manually capitalized the P and X.  Voila!  The password worked.

It's especially funny because I've been trying to convince my niece and nephew that taking bad advice may not cause trouble right away; I had no problem with that capslock-password silliness until now, and I'm past 50.  But sooner or later, those bad habits always catch up with ya...  

Anyway, I've now changed the passwords on all my computers (and my latest remaster) so I enter them without capslock.  In other news:

• specifying the keyboard layout in mylivecd doesn't bypass the boot-time prompt, unless my syntax was wrong.  I used --keyboard dvorak-us.
• specifying GZIP rather than LZMA compression cut the time needed (by my 3-watt processor) to image the system from 90 minutes to 20, while expanding the ISO file from 670 megabytes to 1460.  The computer does run more responsively from the less-compressed live disk, so for low-powered processors this is a good option.

Sorry to have wasted your time with my stupidity.    I'll try not to do that again.  

[johnmart]

Hi enwent,
Regarding your gzip compression question;
I make remasters fairly often but I never used gzip trying to keep my remasters at a lower size.
But in my ast one I was in a hurry for some reason & added --gzip to my command line.
Here's my command & progress report;

mylivecd --gzip --nodir /home/john pclinuxos64-KDE4.83.iso
Created 'pclinuxos64-KDE4.83.iso' (1435,746,304 bytes) in 00:11:35

Remastering the same system with lzma takes ~45min. The iso size increased by about .4gb but there had been some apps added to the second run which would account for some size increase.
HTH
Welcome to the forum, veteran. Don't be a stranger. 

[djohnston]

Sorry to have wasted your time with my stupidity.

enwent,

As for me, I cannot say you wasted my time. I had forgotten where the keymaps were kept and went looking for them. I think you have the syntax right. That would make dvorak-us the pre-selected keyboard. However, on a live CD run, part of the startup procedure is to verify the user's keyboard layout.

You might be surprised how many of us answer questions for someone here, never to hear from the poster again. Did it work or not? Did the poster give up or lose interest? Often, we never know. You responded with the end of the story. Kudos. Welcome to the forum.