Rocky (clone of Redhat Enterprise) GNU/Linux 9.3 login is broken with four spaces after the prompt (I never press space, just this happens on every boot). It always says correct passwords are wrong, even blank ones. Before I deleted those (in chroot, then booted to Rocky) for root and the wheel user, when trying to login as the wheel user it had a large message saying something about a wrong context (didn't say bad password, but still didn't accept).
        I have no problem booting & logging into Slackware, OpenSUSE, Devuan, Mint, Neon, Gentoo, Arch/SystemRescue GNU/Linuxes on same PC... only Rocky is doing this weird behaviour.

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Before you deleted what!!!?

Does the same problem occur whether booted to multi-user.target, or in graphical.target the GUI greeter?

Does the same problem occur if you boot to single (aka rescue.target)(append 1 to linu line after striking E at Grub menu to get there)? If not and you can login you can scan the journal for clues, probably with PAM. You may need to refer to journal of prior boot, in which case, be sure /var/log/journal/ existed for at least one ordinary boot attempt before you look.

'Those' refers to previous noun which is 'passwords'.

I thought it normally boots multi-user. I won't use GUI (and if I can't login can't choose that anyway).

Haven't tried tyet but guess I could soon, but dislike idea of scanning a 'journal' from what I've seen of these on other GNU/Linux (oldest ones don't use them and are easier).
        Could it be the installer was corrupt, and I should retry and check an md5sum or something?

Deleted how?

An evolved "less" command is built into the systemd journalctl command. You don't need to search out what journal has what you need or where it's located. journalctl -b -1 opens the journal of the previous boot in scan mode. journalctl -b -1 > somefile.txt makes a plain text file copy of the previous boot's journal in the current directory for you to do with which as you please. The fine manual for journalctl will show you many options for narrowing down journal output to specific areas of interest.

That's what was set on my original boot!

I don't have that installed.

Yes.

How many was that? Was it 100% of login users that had passwords set? If so, then you may need to chroot into the installed system, which allows to use the login used to reach chroot in effect in superuser mode, from which the passwd command can be run to establish password(s) for desired user(s).

I exlpained I already tried this with passwords and blank passwords, so never mind that. I just want to login and can't with both multi-user and single-user modes, seeing these broken login prompts.
        Even after this it (says it's automatically logging in but) still asks/rejects password with broken login prompt: http://forums.rockylinux.org/t/how-t...y-linux/6104/3.

I suggested what I did because I suspect having valid passwords in effect may correct the login misbehavior. IOW, PAM may be mishandling the login process because no valid passwords exist.

Found what the problem is. Rocky doesn't prompt (and wait for input) to ask if I want a boot-loader and overwrites/clobbers the one I have. When I booted with Rocky's GRUB2, I was able to login. Of course then I rebooted and overwrote that with my original from Slackware, then later tried to boot Rocky. That's when I saw the same broken login prompt.
        Apparently Rocky leaves no configuration details in a place other GNU/Linux can find and configure it to boot right. It apparently uses a special type of booting not just with several kernel parameters but maybe other stuff that's obscured in some configuration detail/file I haven't found. I need to transfer over this configuration, but it'd be best if it can just be better in the future to be detected automatically just as Debian/Devuan/Ubuntu/Mint/Neon, Gentoo, Arch all get their GRUB2 configuration detected to be configured to boot fine. RedHat is almost as old as Debian so I don't know why something this basic is broken on it... of course Debian/Devuan has broken things also. The only most reliable GNU/Linux is Slackware!