Users in Linux could be managed using command-line tools or via graphical applications. The most common command-line tools in Linux for user creation are adduser and useradd. At the same time, most desktop environments and Linux distributions will have a graphical tool that is just a frontend to these command-line tools.

Graphical methods to create user for different Linux distributions:

All these tools will eventually write related user information in /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow files. They'll also create user home directory and populate the home directory with necessary files stored in /etc/skel.

You can manually add user information to these files to add new users in Linux or use dedicated tools such as adduser. adduser is an interactive command-line tool that is available by default in most Linux distributions.

Steps to add new user on Linux:

  1. Launch a terminal application.
  2. Run adduser command with a username as argument. 

    $ sudo adduser username

  3. Enter password for current user if necessary. 

    [sudo] password for user:

    Current user needs to have administrator privilege on the system.

  4. adduser will add the user along with other details. 

    Adding user `username' ... Adding new group `username' (1001) ... Adding new user `username' (1001) with group `username' ... Creating home directory `/home/username' ... Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...

  5. Enter desired password for the user followed by [ENTER] twice. 

    New password: Retype new password: passwd: password updated successfully

  6. Enter some informational values (optional) or just press [ENTER] to keep blank and proceed. 

    Changing the user information for username Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default 	Full Name []: 	Room Number []: 	Work Phone []: 	Home Phone []: 	Other []:

  7. Press Y and [ENTER] to confirm everything is correct for adduser to really create the user. 

    Is the information correct? [Y/n] y

    Manual: adduser(8) – Linux man page