its asking for a password and the password i used to set it up is not being accepted!!!
anyone got any ideas? or do i just reinstall again?
Are you using GRUB?
http://tournasdimitrios1.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/how-to-reset-your-linux-password/
I have never used "single", but "1" or "s" I have used with success.
i ended up doing something similar to that. i joined the debian forums and asked the same question. got no answer so kept googling till i found an answer..
i edited the grub entry and added single init=/bin/bash ..... no idea what that means but i managed to get in then i logged in as root. added my user to the sudo group. then managed to log in as me and change the grub boot default to the win7 os as my partner uses the netbook and has some files in the win7 partition. if she booted into wheezy it would freak her out.. lol
so much to learn to find my way around in linux. having been microsoft based since dos 4( or earlier cant remember ) and gon through all windows from 1 through to 8.1......
the frustration of not being able to edit a config file because im not in the sudo group!!
is there a way to autologin ? as i will be the only user it wont be a problem. i can do it in windows but no idea how or even if you can in debian..
Well, let's start with the line you added to GRUB. "
init=/bin/bash" means the kernel will load the shell interpreter instead of the regular service management system when it has finished initializing the hardware. This has a few implications, such as network not being set up or tty features (things like forking or killing processes) not working properly. You can still use the basic system, all hardware is operational and will respond when given work, but there isn't much running which does so. What you end up with is usually a root shell and an error message telling you that "job control" isn't working (this is one of the tty features I mentioned earlier). In this state the machine doesn't know how to turn itself off, so you'll have to do the next best thing and make sure it doesn't hurt itself. Do this by running the command "
sync" and then hold down the power switch until it shuts off. This will make sure the kernel writes everything in the cache out to the disk.
As for the password... I've never encountered the exact error you're describing. I have however forgotten my password once or twice and resetting that is pretty simple. Use the trick above to get to a root shell, then use the command "
passwd <yourusername>" (yes, that is password without the letters 'o' and 'r'). Since you're root, passwd will happily change any password you want. This is one of the many reasons why you don't want to run regular applications as root. You can add yourself to the sudo group while you're at it, just run "
adduser <yourusernamehere> sudo". This will add your user to the group named "sudo" and as a result you will pass the security check when running the sudo command.
I never use autlogin on potentially publicly accessible computers and I rarely use XFCE, but I searched around for how to set up autologin with XFCE and this is what I found
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=81645 . With a bit of luck this is exactly what you're looking for.
Regarding the BSODs I'd check the power supply with a multimeter while booting as well. Faulty power supplies can become an utter nightmare.
