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My computer starts up and you see the generic UBUNTU loading with the dots underneath and instead of going to a login it takes me straight to a Firefox window where i can not do anything. The computer is a ThinkCentre M55e (type 9637) that i received from a school as they where going to throw them out. I don't know the version of Ubuntu or much about the program itself, so some help would be much appreciated. I assume the lack of ability was to stop children from playing around on the desktop.

user493123
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As you said, this is a Linux machine which has been set up to allow users to surf the Internet and nothing else. Trying to find a way to disable this settings would take much, much more time than reinstalling the whole system, so I recommend the latter. Plus, you'll be free to have any Linux distro on your computer (not just that Ubuntu which is probably outdated).

dr_
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There are probably several ways to get rid of the kiosk mode (fullscreen browser and nothing else), depending on how it was set-up. But none of those are easy to explain here and easy to do for an absolute beginner (e.g., trying ctrl+alt+f1 to go to TTY and fix via terminal).

Reinstalling will be the easiest way and you'll also get a clean system.

There are plenty of good tutorials on how to install Ubuntu, which is really rather simple. Here is a good one with pictures: http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Ubuntu-Linux

And here at "How to install Ubuntu 14.04"

You seem to be stuck at Step 3 of the wikihow article. If your PC doesn't boot from the Live CD/USB Stick, you have to tell the BIOS/UEFI a different boot order. It's probably set-up to just pick the harddisk first. What key to press depends on your system, but there is often a message like "To interrupt normal boot press F1". Some systems have button for the Config menu and another one just for a quick boot order selection. F1, F2, Del etc. are often the keys. Just look closely at the first few screens after power-up and reset your PC if you miss it. Good luck ;)

(NB: if you google for the exact model you have, you'll probably find a guide how-to change boot sequence as well)

Benjamin Maurer
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