Debian uses some long (more than 8 chars) user and group names which I
don't particularly like, e.g.
systemd-timesync
systemd-network
Debian-exim
messagebus
telnetd-ssl
This is annoying with ps(1) which abbreviates these names. For more
than 20 years I have always limited user names to 8 chars on all my
Unix and Unix-like systems. Can I rename Debian's user names without
problems or will they be re-created by apt the next time I install or
upgrade an affected package?
Also, I wonder why I have user names like Debian-exim in my
/etc/passwd although I haven't installed exim. It was part of the
initial install but I have removed it afterwards. Shouldn't the
package management remove those user entries, too? May I remove it by
hand?
Next, there are many names which are both, a user name and a group
name. However, I don't like that many of these don't have the same
numeric uid and gid. Are these IDs fixed in Debian or may I renumber
them to my liking?
Steve
