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I have a realy strange problem in Ubuntu 11.10. I have by accident my password set to empty. If I wan't to install software now the system asks for a password, but I haven't one anymore. If I enter my old password it sais it's wrong and if I leave it empty it also does. Now I wan't to set my password back, but the system asks for the old password before I can change it. That password doesn't exist, so I can't do anything anymore! Can someone help me please?

Marco Ceppi
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Wietse de Vries
  • 223

2 Answers2

9

Try running passwd from a terminal. It'll ask you for your old password, and then for your new one.
If it doesn't accept the old one there, run sudo passwd <username> replacing <username> with your username. That will make sure you can change it without the need for your old one, in the hope that it accepts the sudo password.

RobinJ
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2

You will need to boot in to recovery mode (press shift key after BIOS post and keep it pressed until the grub menu is shown) and drop to a root console. There you will be able to change the password for your current user.

Here you can find a very good example of what to do to reset your password.

Community
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Bruno Pereira
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