Continuing the discussion from [Question about passwd.pacnew]

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Continuing the discussion from Question about passwd.pacnew:

Well /user/bin/bash is not fine for me. It removes me as user, as I can’t log into gui, tty and takes sudo away from me. I get the often-mentioned black screen on autologin.

/user/bin/bash is listed in my /etc/shells/ .

Next to /usr/passwd I have also /usr/passwd-

Unsure what I do now. I fixed it temporarily gettig these 2 files back into my system via the Timeshift snapshot folder.

I had overwritten the old file /etc/passwd with the pacnew via pacdiff -s.

I had 42 lines or so but they remain. It will just insert that first new line to replace the old line with /bin/bash for root.

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You should not overwrite /etc/passwd. It is the most important file that stores information about your user. If your user is not listed, you can’t login.

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So what should I do with the pacnew, merge?

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Carefully look at the difference and merge manually.

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And what the passwd- file?

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Well, may be it’s only a typo, but it’s not /user/bin/bash, it’s /usr/bin/bash

/bin and /usr/bin are the same. /bin is a symlink to /usr/bin so both lines should work…

Instead of using pacdiff, edit /etc/passwd file and change /bin for /usr/bin in root user and all other users you have created. I think it’s easier.

1 Like
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Yes, a typo in the thread. Should I keep that in there too? root:x:0:0::/root:/bin/bash

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Check here about the file Users and groups - ArchWiki

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root:x:0:0::/root:/bin/bash and root:x:0:0::/root:/usr/bin/bash will work the same because both point at the same file. I changed all users in passwd file to /usr/bin/bash because if ever there’s a problem and the symlink between /bin and /usr/bin breaks, this way it would still work.

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  1. No merge.
  2. Delete /etc/passwd.pacnew
  3. (Optional) Edit /etc/passwd to change
root:x:0:0::/root:/bin/bash

to

root:x:0:0::/root:/usr/bin/bash
  1. Done, no headache
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Thank you Zesko and Arrababiski, I will try that and reboot.

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…that’s what merge (and replace) is.

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He wrote optional

There is nothing wrong about it.

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file /usr/passwd- is backup copy of /usr/passwd

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Could then wrote “1. Optional merge” and be done with it. That’s what merge is. That’s what those programs are for. Overwriting conf file and discarding pacnew are just two other options.

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Agree, maybe his writing style was not perfect clear… but still it was acceptable and points in the right direction.

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All I’m trying to say is that reading Manjaro forum I got a feeling that many people think that dealing with .pacnew files means doing overwrite or discard.

And merging is not optional either, TBH. Let’s say you keep same /bin/bash for users in /etc/passwd but in one year there is new change that removes /bin/bash from /etc/shells since everyone should be using /usr/bin/bash anyway. Unlikely to happen but what will be result? Lot’s of people posting how they’re unable to login for some reason.

This is just an unlikely example. But it definitely happened with other conf files. Things change, stuff gets added and removed. And you have to keep track of that plus make sure your custom config stays in there.

2 Likes
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“Ain’t no such thing, old buddy.” (Carl Weathers (R.I.P.), “Predator”, 1987).

It’s /etc/passwd and /etc/passwd-. Yes, having the paths correctly is important. :smile:

As for why the change from /bin/bash to /usr/bin/bash, as has been explained higher up already, /bin is a symbolic link to /usr/bin, and is only there anymore for compatibility reasons, because certain software may still have the /bin and/or /sbin paths hard-coded in when looking for executables, but this is expected to be phased out in the future, and then /bin and /sbin will both be dropped as root-level directory entries.

3 Likes
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Thanks, I put /usr/bin/bash in the first line manually and all worked. Thanks for the support.

Also put it further down at the end of the line that my username start with.
Correct?

Yeah I was a bit in a bedazzled maintenance mode when I typed it :stuck_out_tongue:

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You can, if you want bash as your default shell, yes.