Need help creating a new user account in Guix Distro

Need help creating a new user account in Guix Distro

[Dr Ibrahim El-Nahhal]

Dear Guix Community,

I am reaching out to ask for your help in creating a new user account in
Guix Distro. I have used the "useradd" command to create the account, and
it was successful. However, I am unable to login to this account.

I searched for a solution on "you.com and perlexity.ai and google bard and
chatgpt and monica google chrome extension" and it suggested using the
command "sudo guix system user USERNAME=USER HOME_DIRECTORY=DIR", but
unfortunately, the "user" option is not available in Guix System.

I want to create a new user account and a new Guix profile so that I can
experiment with other Emacs configurations such as scimax for emacs. I am
currently using Emacs EXWM on GNU Guix System Distribution and living
completely inside it, but I am still a newbie.

Any help or guidance on how to create a new user account successfully would
be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.

Best regards,

-- 

Ibrahim Yasser Zidan El-Nahhal

PhD in Environmental Chemistry - UNIVERSITE DE TOULON-FRANCE

Gaza Strip

00970, Palestine
Mobile : +970595546839

WOMS Site :  WOMS15 <http://www.iopan.pl/woms2015/> - WOMS18
<http://woms18.univ-tln.fr/>
Research Gate Profile :
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ibrahim_El-Nahhal
ORCID : https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3321-7359
Scopus Author ID: 57215682063
ResearcherID : https://publons.com/researcher/3216207/ibrahim-y-z-el-nahhal/
Google Scholar Account:
https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=AHWZgzcAAAAJ&hl=en

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Re: Need help creating a new user account in Guix Distro

[Efraim Flashner]

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On Sat, Jun 24, 2023 at 10:41:14AM +0300, Dr Ibrahim El-Nahhal wrote:
> Dear Guix Community,
> 
> I am reaching out to ask for your help in creating a new user account in
> Guix Distro. I have used the "useradd" command to create the account, and
> it was successful. However, I am unable to login to this account.
> 
> I searched for a solution on "you.com and perlexity.ai and google bard and
> chatgpt and monica google chrome extension" and it suggested using the
> command "sudo guix system user USERNAME=USER HOME_DIRECTORY=DIR", but
> unfortunately, the "user" option is not available in Guix System.

Once again the various AI tools are confidently incorrect :D

> I want to create a new user account and a new Guix profile so that I can
> experiment with other Emacs configurations such as scimax for emacs. I am
> currently using Emacs EXWM on GNU Guix System Distribution and living
> completely inside it, but I am still a newbie.
> 
> Any help or guidance on how to create a new user account successfully would
> be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.
> 
> Best regards,

You'll want to take a look at the part of the manual about user
accounts¹. Just as your first user is declared there you'll want to
declare the other ones there too. Then after a guix system reconfigure
you can set their password and login as normal.

¹ https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/html_node/User-Accounts.html


-- 
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Re: Need help creating a new user account in Guix Distro

[Felix Lechner via]

Salaam Dr. El-Nahal,

On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 1:44 AM Dr Ibrahim El-Nahhal
<elnahhal.i@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  have used the "useradd" command to create the account, and
> it was successful. However, I am unable to login to this account.

Like you, I also found that part super confusing. As a declarative
operating system, Guix creates the lines in /etc/passwd at boot time
unless they exist already.

Personally, I succeeded with a config.scm that specified an explicit
password. [1] I changed the password immediately upon login and then
removed it from the config.scm. Those are my user declarations now,
[2] and that's how I use them. [3]

Perhaps that information is helpful to you. Thanks for using GNU Guix!

Kind regards
Felix

[1] https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42541
[2] https://codeberg.org/lechner/system-config/src/branch/history/users.scm
[3] https://codeberg.org/lechner/system-config/src/commit/011c5fddbd4e6ea4a0563788db0b07c9250bdbc1/host/lechner-desktop/operating-system.scm#L181