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Creating a Non-root User

For a simple setup process, Local Desktop won't prompt for a user registration form, that's why it is login as root by default.

However, some applications are recommended or required to run as a normal user. For example:

  • Chrome and Electron-based applications like VS Code work better or are safer without root.
  • AUR helpers like Paru or Yay require a non-root user and won't work as root.
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Please follow the instructions below carefully, or you can continue to use XFCE with root if you prefer.

Create your user​

Open a terminal and run the following command:

(Replace teddy with your preferred username)

useradd -m -G wheel teddy
  • The -m flag creates a home directory for the user.
  • The -G wheel option adds the user to the wheel group, allowing sudo access.

Create your password​

Set a password for your new user (you'll need this for sudo):

passwd teddy

Set up sudo​

Install sudo using pacman for convenience...

Edit the sudoers file to allow members of the wheel group to use sudo:

EDITOR=nano visudo

Uncomment the following line by removing the #:

# %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

It should look like:

%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Save and exit.

[Important] Tell Local Desktop​

You must tell Local Desktop who to log in as, or it will log in as root. To (create and) edit the config file:

nano /etc/localdesktop/localdesktop.toml

Add the following content:

/etc/localdesktop/localdesktop.toml
[user]
username = "teddy"

(Replace teddy with the username you created previously)

The changes will take effect the next time you launch Local Desktop.