[PATCH v3] adduser: remove preconfigured GECOS full name field

[Denys Vlasenko]

Applied, thank you.

On Tue, Nov 25, 2025 at 2:53 PM Achill Gilgenast <achill at achill.org> wrote:
>
> Pre-configuring "Linux User" as Full Name is confusing a lot of users
> downstream.[1] For example, in geary e-mails were sent out as "Linux
> User"[2] and I also saw a couple of git commits with this name. This name
> does not bring any more improvements than just leaving this field
> empty, and let applications most likely fallback to the username.
>
> Alternative would be to set the field to `&` (Capitalized username,
> according to passwd(5)) or that we just set the GECOS field downstream.
>
> [1] https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/-/issues/2214
> [2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/geary/-/issues/1486
>
> Signed-off-by: Achill Gilgenast <achill at achill.org>
> ---
>  loginutils/adduser.c | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/loginutils/adduser.c b/loginutils/adduser.c
> index d3c795afa48b..bfab05203241 100644
> --- a/loginutils/adduser.c
> +++ b/loginutils/adduser.c
> @@ -196,7 +196,7 @@ int adduser_main(int argc UNUSED_PARAM, char **argv)
>                 bb_simple_error_msg_and_die(bb_msg_perm_denied_are_you_root);
>         }
>
> -       pw.pw_gecos = (char *)"Linux User,,,";
> +       pw.pw_gecos = (char *)"";
>         /* We assume that newly created users "inherit" root's shell setting */
>         pw.pw_shell = xstrdup(get_shell_name()); /* might come from getpwnam(), need to make a copy */
>         pw.pw_dir = NULL;
> --
> 2.52.0
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