I related the below story tonite in our Ubuntu Utah meeting and John asked me to blog the details and the howto. This is for you buddy 
A few months ago I was in Chicago to take the Redhat Certified Engineer exam. By day I attended class and by night I studied the book to prepare for the grueling test. Well, one of the nights I was there (5 day course) my brother calls me in a panic begging me to come fix his computer. I of course tell him that I’m in Chicago at the moment and not sure what I can do to help. At that I can hear his heart sink, so I ask him what the problem is.
He starts into this sob story about how he has a paper due in the morning but he can’t get logged into his computer. Apparently his wife dropped something on the keyboard and the number row no longer works, which limits him from logging into his machine (numbers in passwords are good ideas boys and girls!). He is, by my suggestion, using Ubuntu on his home machine so I know I can save the day.
As he continues this story I use ssh to connect to his machine…
ssh user@remote-host
..and open the /etc/gdm/gdm.conf file.
vim /etc/gdm/gdm.conf
I change two lines from:
AutomaticLoginEnable=falseAutomaticLogin=
to
AutomaticLoginEnable=trueAutomaticLogin=username
I save the file and restart the gdm (Gnome Desktop Manager)
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
By this point he’s finishing his sob story about how he needs to get his paper written or he’s going to fail his class, never graduate and end up being homeless, etc, etc.
I interrupt him to tell him to look at his computer, which is now logged in as his user, never requiring a password or username for access.
The phone goes silent. I ask if he’s still there. He is.. he’s speechless.
I remind him this is all due to the wonders of Linux and wish him good luck with his paper.. and to tell his friends about the wonders of Ubuntu!
Simple as that. SSH connection, two commands and a very thankful brother all from 1,400 miles away… and a tutorial on how to activate automagic login on Ubuntu (which is probably not the most secure idea, but you’ve been warned. Once he got a keyboard replacement I reverted the changes on his machine.)
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