[Techtalk] Unknown root password

[David Sumbler]

On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 22:01 +0100, David Sumbler wrote:
> A colleague told me today that she has bought a small laptop which runs
> Linux.  After a little questioning, it appears that it is Ubuntu Hardy
> Heron.
> 
> She asked me if I would have a look at it some time, as she has a few
> small problems - she mentioned that RealPlayer doesn't work (or isn't
> installed), and that movies won't play either (perhaps that's one
> problem, rather than two).
> 
> I said that I was surprised that it hadn't been set up with these
> working; she said that the man in the shop didn't seem to know a lot
> about Linux, and that it had wanted the "administrator's" password, but
> he didn't know what it was.

Thanks to all those who replied, regardless of gender.  They were all
helpful suggestions.

There was, in fact, a root account with a password, which I couldn't
guess.  So I set a new one which my friend thought was ingenious.

RealPlayer 11 installed OK, and I tweaked a few other things, but
unfortunately we had no internet access so I couldn't install the mp4
codec that she needs.

I have the machine here at home now, but for some reason I can't seem to
get it to connect to my home network.  Oh well, teething problems!

David

-- 
David Sumbler <david at aeolia.co.uk>