Hey there Forum Folks. I am just venturing into the Linux world, and I have a HP All-In-One that was “Linux Minted” by a friend of my son. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the sign-in or password, and he can’t either, and he removed absolutely everything, so I can’t boot it up another way. Is there any way to reset this thing so I can sign in or start over or whatever? I am new to the Linux world, and it was so different that the usual functionality, plus I couldn’t download Telegram, so I figured I would learn it when I had time and set it aside without recording the sign-in and password (total doofus move on my part). I can’t just toss this computer and I don’t know what to do. I am writing this from an old laptop that hasn’t yet gotten the Linux treatment, though I hope to update it in the future and also get a de-Googled, de-Androided phone if possible. Appreciate any help I can get on this.
Here’s some info I copied a while back that might help. I think I actually got it from this forum… can’t remember…
Reset Linux Password
upon boot (right after your BIOS screen disappears), tap the ESC key on your keyboard to get the boot menu for Mint. Then, select the Advanced Options and find the FallBack or Recovery for your current Kernel. Usually the 2nd options will do.
Once it loads up, you will be presented with a menu. Select to drop down to Root Terminal and then type in the following:
ls /home
The name of the folder you see in there is your actual username. For the sake of convenience, I shall call it your_username, so please change it in the command below to correspond to the name of the folder you saw above.
passwd your_username
It will ask twice for a password. It will not be visible, so go ahead and type it in. Once done, press Enter. It will ask you again for verification. Do the same and press Enter.
Once done, the new password will be set. Feel free to type:
reboot
And then hit Enter. After that, you will be able to login with your new password.
since you don’t have any think to save and you haven’t spent a bunch of time loading programs I would just go head and reload the op sys.
Have your friend of a friend make a bootable thumb drive so you can install a fresh version when ever you have the need to do so.
I download and keep a version of each distro in a folder on my USB drive. I don’t store any thing on the “C” drive.
Hi Code Talker: Thanks for your response. I thought about that, but since I have ZERO experience with Linux at this point, and I was unable to download Telegram no matter how many times I tried, I would hate to have to also fail to download Brave - in fact, without a browser in the in first place, I wouldn’t even know how to start to get that installed, LOL. The friend/family has since moved to Tennessee, so I can’t get the help I need from him.
If I cannot get this accomplished with Vette_Mechanic’s instructions above, though, I will have to start from scratch as you suggest. Thanks again for weighing in on my problem.
Thanks so VERY much, Vette_Mechanic. I am going to go and see if I can get this done right now! Appreciate it greatly!