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 boot
the system, I am ask to login. I typed what I think is the login
name and
password 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 every
time.
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