Chris Lale wrote:
Hello William - please reply to the list, not individuals. You may get more replies that way!Thank you for your response. I installed Debian without the Ethernet card been detected. Yes, I have the 2 dvd's.My problem now is after installing Debian for the first time, I was asked to write a user name, a user account name, login name and password. When I bootthe system, I am ask to login. I typed what I think is the login name andpassword I registered with, but I get an "invalid" response. I am unable to login. It is very frustrated because I don't know what to do next. I login those user names I always use, and I only have one(1) password I used everytime. Can you tell me how to bypass login name and password to enter Debian.
If you still know your root password (the first password that you were asked to set during installation), you can use the user name "root" and that password to log in. The root user can change all the other users' passwords by using the command "passwd username". You can also create new users with the command "adduser". The root account itself should not be used for normal work. If you have forgotten your root password you can break into your computer the following way (assuming you have the GRUB bootloader): 1) Boot the computer, but stop it immediately at the blue GRUB screen, for example by pressing the up/down cursor keys. Depending on your setup you might have an entry for your normal kernel which will be called something like "Debian GNU/Linux ..." and an entry called "memtest". Use the up/down cursor keys to select the "Debian GNU/Linux ..." entry and press "e" to edit it. Select the line which starts with "kernel" (up/down again) and press "e" once more. You will see the line with some parameters and a blinking cursor at the end. Add the following text to the end of this line: "single init=/bin/bash" (without the quotation marks). Make sure that there is a space between the original text and your addition. Press <ENTER> when you are done and then "b" to boot. 2) If step 1 was successful your computer will boot to the root prompt without asking for any password. Now run the following two commands: mount -n -o remount,rw / mount -avt nonfs,noproc,nosmbfs (This will make the system files accessible.) 3) Use the "passwd" command to set a new root password. You will be asked to type it twice without any characters showing on the screen. 4) Use the command "reboot" to restart your computer normally. Afterwards you can log in as root with the new password and make all necessary changes to get your normal account accessible again. Regards, Florian