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I am finishing installing a amd 64 FreeBSD 11.1 with Gnome 3.

When I configured there a user, I did not input the User Name field; so I was perplexed when GDM booted, and showed me a user as "User &"; it turned out passwd filled it that way.

The thing is that I edited /etc/passwd to put there a proper name; and GDM showed it properly.

However upon changing the password of that user with passwd as root, the user name field was changed back to "User &".

I have not yet tested if using chfn will fix it for good, will test it at home.

However, I am very quite curious, where is that "User &" coming or being restored from?

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    & in the field containing the full name of the user will usually be replaced with the capitalised username (according to passwd(5)). I don't know why GDM doesn't grok it properly or why it seemingly gets reverted when you change it though. Commented Aug 16, 2017 at 10:25
  • @Kusalananda It happened very late yesterday, will investigate a bit more at home today and edit a little more the question. Commented Aug 16, 2017 at 10:34

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You should not edit /etc/passwd as it is not the master copy - use vipw instead.

See the manual page for more.

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  • I know vipw thanks for the hint. I will investigate more that is happening behind the scenes later on, will keep you posted. Commented Aug 16, 2017 at 12:04

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