New Dell netbook running Ubuntu8.04LTS and factory user password problem.

[Markus Schönhaber]

Luis Maceira:

> Last week I purchased a Dell Inspiron 910n netbook running Ubuntu8.04LTS.The
> problem is: when I power on the netbook I get automatically to the d1ell
> account(prompt d1ell at d1ell),but I do not know the password(I do not see any
> user account login information in the netbook package).In the netbook BIOS
> there is the option to reset the BIOS password and the user password but
> for now I prefer not to change anything in the BIOS,have anyone experienced
> something similar with a Dell netbook?
> I have approximately 200MB of stuff to upgrade and I cannot do it because
> the upgrade manager asks my user password,which I do not know what it is.

Changing/setting the BIOS password won't help you the least. Leave the
BIOS alone.
But you can reset this account's password:
- Reboot
- If necessary, press ESC to see the boot menu
- Select the entry that reads "... (recovery mode)"
- When the boot process is finished, you should see the Recovery Menu,
select "root ..." there
- At the prompt type [1]
passwd d1ell
and enter the new password twice.
- Press Ctrl-D to leave the shell
- Select "resume ..." to continue booting

See also
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LostPassword

[1] provided "d1ell" is really the acount name.

-- 
Regards
  mks