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I have a 2nd hand laptop with Ubuntu 14.04. I need to delete the old users, but the one is guest and the other user Ubuntu says is not the root user. but there are no other visible users? I get this message:

deluser /usr/sbin/deluser: Only root may remove a user or group from the system.

So, how do I delete my "ancestor"-primary user, if it's not my root user?

hg8
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Hrefna
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    If you got this from someone else, and don't know the root password, I highly suggest you do a reinstall, Ubuntu is free and the install is easy, follow this guide http://askubuntu.com/questions/6328/how-do-i-install-ubuntu – Mark Kirby Oct 16 '15 at 07:21
  • Besides that a reinstall would be the best option, you never log in as root, but as admin user who has the right to run commands with sudo as root. – Byte Commander Oct 16 '15 at 07:52

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For security reasons it is not recommended to keep an Ubuntu installation from an unknown predecessor.

  • They may have installed software you never need.
  • They may have made customization you can not undo without knowing where to look.
  • Their data may be interesting for the nosy part in us but they will use up space you prefer to use for your own data.
  • They may even have accidentally (or in the worst case intentionally) installed software capable of spying on you.

Therefore you should start new from scratch. Usually a fresh installation of Ubuntu will take you less than half an hour. After that you will be sure that the system is clean, and to your liking.

For an installation guide see: How do I install Ubuntu?

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Takkat
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