Auto-login on Mageia 1

Autologin, auto-login or automatic login is one of those features of an operating system that I normally do not recommend. And the reason is obvious: If you can autologin, so can anyone with physical access to your computer.

Another reason is, with time, there is a tendency that you will forget your password, assuming you followed good security procedure by not writing it down somewhere.

But there are situations when it is the best option. For example, in my ECK Center, there is only one computer that anyone may use. So rather than create a zillion accounts for every member, I set up one account with autologin enabled. This gives any member or visitor or the kids access to the computer. Of course, a few members who use the computer for official business have their own account with autologin disabled.

So, if you need to enable automatic login on Mageia 1, here are the steps involved (Note that this procedure is also valid for Mandriva, the distribution that Mageia was forked from.):

Start the Mageia Control Center and click on Boot. When in the Boot window, click on “Set up autologin to automatically log in.”

By default, automatic login is disabled. To enable it, just select “Yes, I want autologin with this (user, desktop),” then select the user and desktop from the dropdown menus below it. Click Done, and that’s it.

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