Small question: I am on Debian and use Gnome. I’m the only user on this laptop.
Is it possible to hide my username from the log in screen? So that only the password field shows?
The point is, my login name is my first name, and I don’t like it …
- … when people in public transport can see my first name when I log in
- …that if I lose my laptop, the people who find it can easily know my first name
I realize I could also simply pick a username that is not my first name, but it would save me a lot of reconfiguration if I could simply hide the name from the login screen.
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Configure automatic login and encrypt your drive. Shows only “enter passphrase” and is actually secure instead of just a cosmetic password prompt.
slight disagree. While encryption is very useful, it requires a full shutdown or hibernation to do what a normal “sleep” or “lock” would do. definitely not the most convenient setup. I’d say OP should just change his username to something else.
Hibernation does not take that long with a modern ssd. Convenience and security often don’t go hand in hand. Locking the laptop usually is sufficient too for switching trains etc.
I’m not on Debian, but a quick search led me to this wiki link from Arch. Give it a whirl:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GDM#Hide_user_from_login_list
Edit: context of the Arch wiki link, in case better answers can be gleaned from it, I found it on AskUbuntu: https://askubuntu.com/questions/2471/how-to-hide-users-from-the-gdm-login-screen
OP, you might want to just change your username.
I dont know of an easy, clean and elegant way of doing what you ask. I wonder what happens if you edit /etc/passwd with the new name, I wouldn’t dare to try. The way I’d proceed though is to start a bare repo with my dotfiles, so if anything happens, I’m back in business with minimal configuration changes.
This is a video about bare git repo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBoLDpTWVOM&t=0
Stolen from this other video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApkoY-PN0Nk&t=0
how will it know which user to pass over to PAM log in? i think the best way would be to edit the gdm source code, hardcode your username into it, remove the output of names, and compile your own. it will be a lot of work though.