Adding a User Account

It is bad practice to log in as the root user on any Unix-like system for anything other than performing system administration tasks. You will want to create a user account for yourself as soon as possible. This is done using the useradd command. We're goind to give an example here. However, it is good to familiarize yourself with the various flags and arguments by looking up and reading the man page using the command man useradd.

It is quite likely that you will not get everything exactly correct the first time. It is also likely that at some future time you may wish to edit some characteristic of the created user, such as supplementary groups to which this user belongs.

While we're on the subject of supplmentary groups, it is a good idea to make your own user account a member of the wheel group, allowing you to su to the root user account.

Our example

Our example user is Ford Prefect.

useradd -G wheel -m -s /bin/zsh -c "Ford Prefect" ford
passwd ford