What if you lost your account password?
Before you destroy your linux installation check this out:
switch on your computer, and as soon as you can, strike the Esc key on your keyboard to display GRUB menu;
highlight and select the recovery mode;
your distro will boot into a recovery shell and, after you get a console prompt, type:
user@pc:~$ passwd user
where the user is your username;
choose, enter and confirm a new password when prompted;
restart your machine:
user@pc:~$ reboot
and take a deep breath.
If you like to try a new Linux distro (or any other OS with similar features) you can prepare a bootable USB device (stick, pen, thumb, disk and so on) and boot your system standing by for loading process completion.
Actually that is not ever easy because older PCs don’t have the proper updated BIOS support.
It doesn’t matter what kind of USB you have (1.0 or 2.0) Plop could be your ultimate solution.
That said, you can download and burn the .iso image so you won’t be in trouble if you get wrong in MBR hard drive setup.
Once the burning process has finished, just insert the cd and restart your PC then scroll down the green entry list menu and go on with USB booting process.
Now you can test any rescue USB system or live linux distro too.
Piece of cake!
When you set up Ubuntu or Kubuntu or some other Ubuntu-like distro, during the installation process it automatically will add the first user to the sudo group, allowing that user to make changes as the super user (aka root aka administrator if you come from Windows environment) by typing in the related password.
However, if you want to give someone else superuser privileges (please think on it) on your Linux system, you’ll have to give it a specific sudo access.
That is very easy to do. Just run:
user@pc:~$ sudo usermod -G admin username
That’s all!
If you prefer the graphic way of doing things, open System -> Administration -> Users and Groups.
Select the user you want to add to sudo, and click Properties.
Under the User privileges area, check the box “Executing system administration tasks” and you’ll be done.
