User:Kirk202/User Guide - Logging into the Desktop

This section of the Fedora User Guide explains how to identify yourself - or, how to login - to your system. During the post-installation process, you created an identity with a user name and a password, called an account. If you have forgotten any of your user account details, you may read the section I Cannot Login: HELP!. For additional information about the login process, refer to the section Logging In : A Technical Explanation.

Login
When you restart or turn on your computer, it goes through a process called booting. During the boot process, your computer hardware powers on and performs a series of self-tests. Immediately after the computer has finished booting, the login screen appears asking you to choose the user name. The login screen displays one or more user names, depending on the number of user accounts present.

Here is how to log in to your account.


 * To start, click on your user name. To do this, do one of the following:
 * Press the [Enter]  key.  The user name is case sensitive (capitalization matters; "A" is not the same as "a").
 * Double Click on your user name in the list of choices.


 * Another window pops up asking for your password. Enter you password, is also case sensitive, in the box to the right of Password:.

Now the desktop environment loads. In some desktop environments, a small box containing a logo and some icons, called a splash screen, may temporarily appear. When your splash screen (if you have one) disappears, your desktop is ready for use. You can now launch applications to access the Internet, manage files, and play media. These tasks are described in the following chapters.

Logging In: A Technical Explanation
Fedora is a multi-user operating system. Multiple users, each with different access privileges, can be logged into the computer at the same time.

During installation, you provided a password for the system administrator account, sometimes called the superuser. The user name for this account is root.

After installation, Fedora asked you to set up a normal user account. Use that account, or any other such normal account, for daily use of the system, and the root account for administrative and maintenance tasks. This design has many benefits:


 * Limited privileges reduce the possibility of doing significant damage to the entire system.
 * Each user account has individual settings.
 * Each user account maintains its data separate and private from others.
 * A problem in one user account does not put the entire system at risk.

I Cannot Login: HELP!
A common mistake during login is accidentally having the [CapsLock] key turned on. This situation can cause the login process to fail because usernames and passwords are case sensitive. If problems persist, re-enter your username and password a few times to ensure that you have typed them correctly.

Recovering the password for a user account is not a difficult process, but it is beyond the scope of this guide. You may wish to ask for help on user forums or chat rooms for further assistance. For an explanation and details on how to do this, please refer to the  User Accounts  section of the Fedora Administration Guide.