Login Problem

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Tue, 15 Jan 2008, S Gormican wrote:

> I’m helping out with an orphanage in Mexico that recently added 4
> computers to the 10 I have there.  Edubunto is loaded on all of them,
> but it requires a username and a password and the donor is not known.  

When you start it booting, there should be a BIOS screen, followed by a
brief countdown during which you can press ESC to get a boot menu.  If you
want to reset the password for Edubuntu, you can follow these instructions:

1. Press ESC as described above.

2. Choose the first "recovery mode" boot option, which is probably second
   in the list and press <return>.

3. The computer should boot to a command shell (which looks like a DOS
   prompt).

4. Type 
	ls /home 
   and press <return>.  You should see a list of the usernames on the
   machine.  Ignore the one called "lost+found".  Pick the other one, or
   one other ones.

5. Type 
	passwd XXXXX
   putting where XXXXX is the username you found in [4].  You will be
   prompted for a new password.

6. Type 
	reboot
   and the machine will reboot as normal.  You can then login to Edubuntu
   using the username you got in [4] and the password you set in [5].

> I can’t even access the CD.  Is there a way to reload the system or
> access the CD to load Windows?  I downloaded the CD from Edubunto, but
> I’m afraid it won’t recognize it.  

Edubuntu will not stop you installing windows if that's what you want.  You
might need to go into the BIOS and get it boot a CDROM.  How exactly this
is done is specific to your model of computer.

> How do you get into BIOS on Edubunto to get it to boot from D:\ when you
> don’t have the username and password?  Any help would be appreciated.

The BIOS is part of the computer hardware (well, it's on a chip on the
motherboard) and has nothing to do with Edubuntu.  How you get the BIOS to
boot from CDROM drive, is usually a case of pressing a certain key early in
the boot sequence (eg <esc>, <F2>, <F10>, <DEL>), getting into the BIOS
menu and modifying the boot order so that CDROM is first.  

You can then make us all very sad by putting a windows CD in and rebooting.

Gavin