Help Downloading software programs

Question

A person gave me a computer and it has this program installed but he has passwords pretty much on everything so I can't download anything, is there away to get through that.. Please help!!! Thanks a bunch

possible duplicate of How do I reset a lost administrative password? — karel, Oct 19 '14 at 20:55
"it has this program installed" What program? Do you just mean Ubuntu is installed? Or are you referring to some particular application? (You can [edit] your post to clarify this.) — Eliah Kagan, Oct 20 '14 at 00:39

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 19 '14 at 19:19

If the computer is yours you shouldn't have to be concerned with passwords and the problems of the computer. You might best just download and burn an Ubuntu DVD and install fresh. Starting fresh will ensure that you have files complete and can download whatever you want in a more personal manner. Since you'e just getting the computer, what would you be loosing.

As far as passwords, having physical access to the computer, it would be easy to setup your own passwords. Use the same install disk that I just suggested, login the try option, mount the drive and remove the root password from the boot partition. Then you'd be able to log in as root and setup new passwords.

Once booting into the try ubuntu you can mount the disk from the commandline with:

Find the partition with the Ubuntu installtion:

$ cat /proc/partitions

Mount that partition:

$ sudo mount /dev/[desired partition] /mnt

The desired partition is the one with the installation

$ sudo nano /mnt/etc/passwd

Change from:

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

Change to (remove the x from the password field):

root::0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

Now you can exit out of the try ubuntu and boot to the OS. You can log in as root and remove or change any of the passwords to whatever you want them to be.

Enabling the root account is discouraged for security reasons. There are equally simple ways to reset the administrator password. It's also unnecessary and overly complicated to use a live system, when the recovery mode will do. — David Foerster, Oct 19 '14 at 19:52
@DavidFoerster So true. There are lots of ways. The user sounded very novice so I tried giving the simplest method with less steps. You have a good point. I should suggest that he put the x back on the root account after he has set the desired passwords. — L. D. James, Oct 19 '14 at 19:55

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 19 '14 at 19:49

A simple way that doesn't involve enabling the root account (and is therefore more secure), would be to reset the user password from recovery mode with

passwd [USERNAME]

where [USERNAME] is the name of the user you're usually working as.

Alternatively a live system can be used, which is more tedious as it involves mounting and setting up a chroot environment.

Help Downloading software programs

2 Answers2