LMDE needs root (uid 0) for recovery shell

[Lachlan Andrew]

Version: LDME 201303 MATE 64-bit

Problem:
If an error occurs during boot (in my case, fsck failed), Debian requires the root password to start a recovery shell. However, the LMDE installer does not create a root account, and so it is impossible to log in to fix the problem, without booting from USB/CD/...

What I did for the problem to happen:
Install while the real time clock was fast by a couple of days. This caused fsck to complain that the last mount time was in the future. Then booting fails with / mounted read-only, and attempts to start a maintenance shell.

What happened:
The boot splash screen sat there making no progress, but with the "progress indicator" dots still cycling through. When I happened to press DEL, I saw the boot log, asking for the root password, and with an error message that there was not uid 0 account.

When I tried typing a password, I had only typed two letters, when the password prompt reappeared. Pressing "ctrl-D" gave the same result, even though the prompt said that it would skip the repair. When I booted in "recovery mode", it allowed me to type multiple characters of the password and responded to ctrl-D (if I recall correctly).

What I expected to happen instead:
The system to boot
OR
To be able to log in to the recovery shell, because a root account existed
OR
To have the splash screen report that fsck had failed
OR
At least to have the splash screen tell me that I had to press "DEL" to see the boot log. (I tried CTRL-ALT-1, which I'm used to.)

Repeatability:
This occurred every time I booted, until I fixed the mount time by running fsck from a live USB.