Disable password for physical direct login only

Question

I am wondering if it is possible to disable password for the login screen, while keeping it for everything else (e.g. for sudo, for ssh etc).

Idea being that if someone has access to my physical machine, I am already fairly screwed. They can just start another OS, or physically remove the hard-drive. I am not entirely convinced this holds, but I am wondering if it is technically possible.

I am using Ubuntu 21.04, currently with GNOME

You've not provided OS & release details, but you can have your box auto-login and still have passwords.. It's a QA-test case we use (quality assurance) for Lubuntu... — guiverc, Jun 13 '21 at 09:25
For gdm3 https://help.gnome.org/admin/system-admin-guide/stable/login-automatic.html.en I hope it is not outdated. — nobody, Jun 13 '21 at 11:20

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '21 at 13:10

You can enable this in the Gnome settings, under Users.

It is the setting called "Automatic Login"
You need to unlock to be able to enable/disable it.

If with that enabled it still requires a password, you are likely being hit by an issue related to the login screen using Wayland rather than Xorg.
See this QA about how to fix that. (This issue remains a problem as of Ubuntu 20, in 2021)

Disable password for physical direct login only

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