.bash_profile not run when using graphical login

[John]

Martin Maney wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 12:26:13AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> 
>>That was deliberate, actually, since otherwise there's no way to recover
>>from e.g. fsck on your root filesystem failing. We were happy to do this
> 
> 
> Really?  That's odd, because I have, from time to time, had fsck fail,
> and it wasn't impossible to recover as you suggest it must be.  It's
> been a while so I don't really recall the details, but I know I didn't
> have to resort to Knoppix ('cause it didn't exist back then).  Well,
> except for the time the drive was dying in stages, for which I wish
> Knoppix had been around...  :-)
> 
> The more I think about this, the more spurious it sounds.  The
> assumption is that you might not be able to login because some file -
> passwd, say - is corrupted.  


On Debian, how do you get to single-user mode if root is disabled?


Just in case, and not wanting to appear foolish, I've just tried.

You can't without some fancy boot parameters such as
init=/bin/sh
and if you know enough to that then asking for the root password is 
completely ineffectual.


OTOH if you know enough to
a) Physically tie the system down
b) Secure it with BIOS password(s)
c) Secure your boot mangler with password(s)
d) Configure your system to boot only from approved media

then what more does sulogin offer?