Problem
After installing Fedora Xfce, LXDE or Cosmic, the initial setup utility does not run in all situations where it should (e.g. you completed install without creating a user account). As a consequence, the installed system can’t be used, because there’s no user account to log in to.
This affects the following images:
- Fedora 42: All Xfce, LXDE and Cosmic installs.
- Fedora 43-44: Xfce, LXDE and Cosmic installs performed on aarch64 (ARM) from a raw disk image (i.e. ISO installs are unaffected, on any architecture)
Cause
Not yet known.
Related Issues
Bugzilla report: #2358688
Workarounds
Fedora 42 using ISO installation
Ensure you at least set a root password and/or create a user account with admin privileges during install. If you only set a root password, you will then need to create a regular user account manually after first boot, if you want one.
Fedora 42-44 using raw disk image installation
When installing the raw disk image to a supported storage using Fedora ARM installer, make sure to include the --norootpass command line option. This will unlock root account in target OS and set the root password to the empty string (which is extremely insecure and we will secure the root account as soon as possible in the steps below).
After booting from this media, when you are presented with login window, press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to drop into text console. Enter root as your login name and you should be presented with root@fedora prompt. Now enter following commands:
# Create a new user with a default home directory
useradd USERNAME
# Configure a password for the newly added user
passwd USERNAME
# Recommended: Give the new user admin/sudo rights
usermod -aG wheel USERNAME
# DON'T FORGET to set password for the root account
passwd root
# Optional: Lock the root account, to improve system security
passwd -l root
# If you ever need to unlock root account later, you can then use:
# sudo passwd -u root
# Log out of the current session
logout
You can now switch back to the login screen using Ctrl+Alt+F1 and log in using your new user credentials. (Alternatively you could also login as root with no password here and run the commands above using a terminal console).