User name accidently changed Ubuntu will not boot up

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
Can't save users-dirs.dirs
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=en_US.
Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xiit/xinput.d/default.
Could not create gnome accelerators directory `/home/cliff/gnome2/accels': Permission denied

This is the more details, my guess would be where "cliff" is now, should be "cynthia", I have no idea how or why he did this.
I hope this may help. Thanks.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword

Hopefully it was just a mistake and was trying to setup so there were 2 users for the system. Ubuntu is designed to have lots of users and deals with this efficiently but something seems to have gone wrong this time.

I think i would setup a second user account, a new one for yourself, using

System - Administration - Users&Groups

I hope this helps!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi Tom! How do I get to system if I can't boot up? Thanks!

Hmmm, tricky. Do you have another machine that you can make a bootable usb stick from? I don't think it would need to have Ubuntu installed but it might be good if it already does.

There is an excellent guide to making a botable Usb stick somewhere in community documentation but i'm on a different machine and can't access my old bookmarks

Good luck and happy hunting
Regards from
Tom :)

Yikes, no, I don't have a USB stick. I guess that will have to be my first move, I can get to the command prompt thru "options" once I go thru typing in my user and password a couple of times, but I don't understand Linux. I was hoping it would be a command I could type in there to get it booted up and fix.

My options are:

select language
select session
remote login via XMDCP
restart
shut down
suspend.

in select session my choices are

last session
run Xclient script
GNOME
Secure Remote connection
Failsafe GNOME
Failsafe Terminal

He told me he was simply trying to save a photo?? This doesn't make sense to me.

Thank you again Tom.

Jill

Have you tried to go into the repair mode? When first booting up, you should see an option to press the "Esc" key; this will bring up options to repair the system. (I'm sorry but I cannot remember exactly what the options say.) However, when you see the "press Esc" option, do it and the resultant screen will offer some pretty self-explanatory choices. I used this once and it fixed whatever was wrong with my computer.

Look at this URL - It may be easiest to print out the information to follow it:

https://answers.launchpad.net/dell-mini/+faq/311

Hi Andre, I went through your link and everything went as ok until I Control D out to continue booting up, came back to the original error.

Thanks Lawrence, we were there earlier :) still same issue.

If you have re-established your name on your installation then all that remains is to change permissions for the .dmrc file.

Go back to the root prompt (#) and type: chmod 644 .dmrc

Otherwise, if you can get into a failsafe mode or normal mode, open a terminal (Accessories, Terminal) and after the $ sign type: sudo chmod 644 .dmrc
Enter your password and press Enter.

That should fix it.

To check if you are the user logged in, you can type whoami at the terminal prompt.

when I go back in at root@cynthia:~# it says '.dmrc':no such file or directory

now my details are in the error

can't create dir /home/cliff/download
can't create dir /home/cliff/desktop
can't create dir /home/cliff/templates
can't create dir /home/cliff/public
can't create dir /home/cliff/documents
can't create dir /home/cliff/music
can't create dir /home/cliff/pictures
can't create dir /home/cliff/videos
setting IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.

When I let him use this machine, it was only in my name "cynthia", he apparently added a danielle and cliff, which shows cliff cynthia danielle in that order. He also had the password changed to hayden, so when I login for the root prompt, I have to use hayden even tho I've changed it twice now. Am I FUBAR? This is really frustrating.

in failsafe mode,

"to run a command as administrator (user "root") use "sudo <command>".
see "man sudo_root" for details.

bash: /home/cliff/.bashrc: Permission denied
cynthia@cynthia:/$

I typed in sudo chmod 644 .dmrc and got [sudo] password for cynthia: which I put that in and then got chmod: cannot access .dmrc no such file or directory

You must have told your son which password you are using - that was not a good idea. A password is yours alone.
At the moment I have no idea who the administrator is on your machine.

Usually the person who sets up the computer is the administrator and when setting up other users, allows restricted functions.

On the assumption that you are the administrator, you can easily change the password using this command at the # prompt: password
Follow the prompts to reset your password.

Next, go to Administration, Users and Groups. Unlock the screen (using your password) called Users Settings. Click on your name and then on Properties. Open the "User Privileges" tab and tick all the boxes.
Go back to the previous screen and delete any entry other than your own and "root". Close the screen.

This sort of restoration procedure is easy to do at home but difficult long distance. If none of these things work, seek out a repairshop for Linux or contact a Linux User Group (LUG) where you live. Your son might volunteer to cover all expenses.

Please let us know the outcome.

Hi :)

Andre is usually pretty excellent at this sort of thing where i am not, so take his advice rather than mine if i contradict him at all.

I suggested using a Usb stick in order to get to a command prompt but you are already able to get there so don't bother about getting a usb stick just for this! They are useful for transferring data or for temporary back-ups and stuff, perhaps if you are going to send the machine back to Dell then that might be something worth considering.

One of the huge advantages of a Dell machine is access to their customer support which is definitely worth trying to use Hopefully they have an email and/or online forum too. I find telephone support fairly futile from most companies (and expensive!) but i've never used Dell's. Ubuntu/linux is not their normal thing but if you do manage to get through to their Ubuntu/linux tech support they seem to be a good bunch in there.

I think you might be able to hack your way in as SuperUser which is the Root User on the system and a step or 2 above Administrator. To do this get to a command-line and type

su

and then make a guess at what you think the password is. Hopefully you'll find it's whatever you set it as so try that one first. If you guess wrong then try typing "su" again and make another guess. When you get in as root user the command prompt should change to something like this

root@cynthia:/home/user#

when you get that far try using the instructions from
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword
from just above where it says "ls /home" in a tiny screenshot.

Linux encourages open and enquiring minds to develop but that sometimes makes your job as system-administrator quite tough; until you find the right account level to grant. Administrator level should be plenty high enough for him to explore and install things safely but SuperUser level should be for just you alone ;) You will need your own normal user account to be an Administrator too. Having multiple user accounts in linux is a good plan but seems to have been setup a bit wrongly due to inexperience in this instance. The answer in linux is to get more experience so that you can fix it more easily next time! lol, the opposite of 'conventional wisdom' (ie non-linux/unix) of just restricting everyone from doing anything If you do send the machine back to Dell they might be kind enough to set-up other user accounts for you as it wont be much hassle for them to do that.

I hope one/both of us have managed to help there!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Yes, the dot in the front of .dmrc shows us that it's a system file and also tells Ubuntu to keep it hidden when you display the contents of the folder that it's in. I think you need to be in the right folder in order to do the "chmod" thing and i'm not entirely certain which folder it's in on your system. Like i said i've not a lot of experience at this topic.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68286

Andre, yes I had given him the password, I had actually given him the machine (I bought another with xp). I'm thinking he tried to set himself up as administrator, with a new password I can get to root@cynthia:~#

After that it doesn't seem to do anything.

Administrator is supposed to be cynthia, above it can't create dir for cliff in the view detail of the error screen.

So, he was trying to change the administrator to himself and this adding a picture thing wasn't exactly the truth I reckon.

This isn't a password reset I dont think, I can reset it over and over, it still doesn't boot up ?

I'll keep trying thanks Andre and Tom.

In Windows you need Root access permissions in order to do any basic things to use the machine, let alone trying to make it look really cool. In linux that's much easier from normal user although really the main user of the machine does need Admin rights, just not necessarily Root User rights. That's one reason why Windows is so vulnerable to viruses and needs constant security updates and virus scans etc. I recommend setting up Ubuntu as a dual-boot on your machine just for safer and faster internet, if nothing else

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

Although i would leave downloading it until tomorrow as we are waiting for the new upgrade 9.04 to be released later today but as soon as it is available it will be well worth getting :)

Anyway, to deal with the errors

can't create dir /home/cliff/download
can't create dir /home/cliff/desktop
can't create dir /home/cliff/templates
can't create dir /home/cliff/public
can't create dir /home/cliff/documents
can't create dir /home/cliff/music
can't create dir /home/cliff/pictures
can't create dir /home/cliff/videos

I think just getting to a command line and logging in as cliff should let you do

cd /home/cliff
mkdir Download Desktop Templates Public Documents Music Pictures Videos

You can do this with SuperUser but it would set all the file-permissions up badly. I hope this works and gets us a step closer to solving this! I'm just hoping that Andre pops in later!
Regards from
Tom :)

Hi Tom :)

I followed the first command and it came up
root@cynthia:/home/cliff#

The second command, it came up

mkdir: cannot create directory Download':file exists
mkdir: cannot create directory Desktop':file exists
mkdir: cannot create directory Template':file exists
mkdir: cannot create directory Public':file exists
mkdir: cannot create directory Documents':file exists
mkdir: cannot create directory Music':file exists
mkdir: cannot create directory Pictures':file exists
mkdir: cannot create directory Videos':file exists
root@cynthia:/home/cliff#

I'll leave it sit there :)

Thank you Tom :) I don't feel so alone LOL

Lol, thanks :)

Err, maybe try Andre's

chmod 644 /home/cliff/.dmrc

But i'm also wondering if renaming the folder /home/cliff to /home/cynthia might do the trick. I would wait to hear what someone else says about this though.

If you do

cd /home
ls

(note that's a lower-case "LS") do you see folders for cliff, cynthia & danielle ? or are only 2 of those there?

Err, i gota go but i'll be back tomorrow for a bit although it will be hectic no doubt!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

ok, I did chmod 644 /home/cliff/.dmrc which brought it back to

root@cynthia:/home/cliff#

then typed in cd /home ls which brought it to

root@cynthia:/home#

Am I getting somewhere? LOL

I'm not sure about the chmod stuff. It looked about right to me and also looked like something undoable if it went wrong. Has it fixed the bootup problem?

On a different topic, one that i can handle, lol. Try just

cd /home

and then

ls

this should give you 3 folders but i'm guessing that there's only Cliff & Daniella ?
Just wondered how many folders in there. Root use is kept elsewhere for safety ;)
Good uck and regards from
Tom :)

________________________________
From: Jill mini 9 <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Thursday, 23 April, 2009 14:37:41
Subject: Re: [Question #68263]: User name accidently changed Ubuntu will not boot up

Question #68263 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68263

    Status: Answered => Open

Jill mini 9 is still having a problem:
ok, I did chmod 644 /home/cliff/.dmrc which brought it back to

root@cynthia:/home/cliff#

then typed in cd /home ls which brought it to

root@cynthia:/home#

Am I getting somewhere? LOL

--
You received this question notification because you are a direct
subscriber of the question.

Hi

Three folders:

cliff cynthia danielle

I'm leaving it at root@cynthia:/home#

I don't know where to go from there.

Thanks Tom :)

Ok, my fudge-it way isn't going to work. It was a pretty dumb plan anyway. Errr, i was wondering if you could find out how much free-space you have on the system and how much space is used up in each of the "/home/cliff" folders but i can't find the command. Could you run these commands to try clearing a little space

apt-get clean

This clears away program installer downloads that have then be used to install the program and are no longer really needed. You could see how much space there is on the drive by using a very powerful tool, take care with this one! Just type in

parted

print

quit

and then let us know what the text ouput from that was, or how much space there is left on the partitions.
Good luck with this, regards again from
Tom :)

at the current prompt I'm at, parted and quit are commands not found,

apt-get clean only left it at the root@cynthia:/home#

I wish there was a way just to get anything "cliff" off of here in this screen.

Thanks Tom :)

in failsafe at the root@cynthia:/# I typed in "whoami" and got root. does this help any? :)

I'm sorry Jill but that's as far as i can take this one. It might well be worth re-posting this question so that new people at the front desk can try to help
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion

Just copy the url link to this question so people can see what's been tried and more detail about the problem
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68263

It's also worth trying other forums to get an answer to this and just see who gets the best answer first. if you do get a better answer from elsewhere then we would appreciate a url link to that to help anyone else having the same problem in the future
https://help.ubuntu.com/community

I'm not sure what the links are to Dell tech support but you should be able to get some good help from them too. I'm not sure when Andre is likely to be coming back so it's best not to wait for him. He can always add directly to this post if/when he does get in

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Thanks Tom, you tried and I appreciate that. Dell has a repeating loop when you call tech support that they do not do support for the Ubuntu systems and direct you here. Isn't that some ......? LOL

I'll try to figure out how to repost this. :)

Take care!

Jill

Just do exactly the same again to re-post it. Here's a link to help
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion

Odd that there isn't an email support or a forum?
Good luck hunting this one
Regards from
Tom :)

There is a forum, but they direct you here on the forever hold loop. :)

Jill

Hmmm, now i am wondering if you could get an 8Gb Usb stick and install the newest Ubuntu 9.04 remix made especially for this type of machine. It has just been released today so it's quite up-to-date and doesn't need much updating! ;)

Also a Usb stick might be good for getting any data off the machine before starting a full install to wipe everything back to starting conditions. Installing is considerably easier than half the stuff you've been doing already! It does depend on whther the Dell mini9 has a usb port of course! They are about as wide as a thumb nail and flatish but fairly thick and is probably on the back or side of the machine. I'm not sure how much they are nowadays.

There are lots of ways of installing linux and a slightly cheaper way might be if you found a similar but squareish port at the back of the machine which might allow it to connect to your internet router and we coud try to boot the Dell from your main Xp machine. I've not installed by a network bootup before but there are a few guides around on how to do it. I imagine this is a bit of a challenge for us though!

Some options for installing Ubuntu 9.04 on the mini9
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation#Installation%20without%20a%20CD

Mostly we don't start with advanced stuff like this password and user-groups stuff. Mostly we start by installing the normal Ubuntu desktop edition, adding a few users perhaps when we first install and then maybe a little minor tweaking to get graphics and multimedia sorted out and that's it for ages. Eventually we find that we boot into Ubuntnu more often than into Windows and eventually make a couple more tweaks to make that the default, automatic option. I've still got my dual-boot into Windows but it's been months since i last needed it for anything :0 Good to have it there as a backup system tho :)

Of course before installing Ubuntu or any other linux it's a good plan to run it straight fromt he Cd without installing anything, jsut to see how it looks and see if you have any trouble getting to a working desktop.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

This would be great for your Windows Xp machine. Xp is great at working well with Ubuntu.

Lol, good luck and regards from
tom :)

Hi Tom, I was able to get it to boot up on the new thread, https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68369 , now I'm at the users settings looking at the mess I have LOL. it still has errors, but so long as I log in with the newuser I can get to a full boot. If

I can see what he did, but no idea, or not confident enough to try to fix it,

Name
Jill

login name
cynthia

home directory
/home/cliff

this one was obviously changed, it's not active right now

The next one

name
cliff

login name
root

home directory
/root

this is so wrong! not active right now

This is the highlighted one, name changed to protect the guilty :)

name
there isn't one, but an icon

login name
newuser

home directory
/home/newuser this is the active one.

What do I do now? LOL

Thanks Andre Mangan, that solved my question.

Ok, i'm not sure about this and it sounds like you have more problems worth posting. Try to keep each thread about 1 topic, such as sound. This makes it easier for people searching through the solved answers database later.

Before doing any of this i would check that it looks about right, hopefully Andre or someone can assess my work here and give a correct answer if i am wrong

usermod -d /home/cynthia/ cynthia

usermod -d /home/cliff/ cliff

this last one is the one that worries me most. The first one should be fine, i think lol. I really think that instead for the second one we need to change the name of the user and setup new accounts for him and danielle.

Err, i really am stretched here tho, does that look right?
Regards from
Tom :)

PS Pleeease a boot loader question now? lol

I have sound and internet now, but I do have the same errors when booting up, the difference is I can complete the boot when entering the new username and password.

Those commands, do I do the same escape on the restart, log back in the same why I have been to use those commands? I told him he doesn't need these other users. Danielle doesn't even show up in the admin area. I wish I knew something about linux, LOL

What do those commands do? That might help me understand a little more what I'm doing. :)

Tom, I hate being optimistic, but I think everything is cool, I used your command on the first one only and everything seemed to boot up fine, he has root named as cliff, I'm not sure if that matters, but my original user name appears to be back to normal.

If I could hug all you wonderful helpers I would LOL

There is a little help file for each command on the command-line. Just type " --help" or in some other distros it's " -h". So on an Ubuntu command-line try

chmod --help

apt-get --help

usermod --help

there are also some "man" pages, manuals, i've never been unlucky enough to find those tho. Presumably now that you've got one Admin user set up you'll be able to finish setting up your's and cliff's and then may as well have danielle as a guest or something. It's better to set up different accounts than to let other people know your passwords, in linux :) In Windows it doesn't make much difference, the security is only a surface layer designed to annoy the user and fool them into thinking stuff is safe. Wait a minute! If you can login to a desktop gui then why are we still struggling on the command-line? I know it's better but point and click is more fun :)

System - Administration - Users&Groups

Surely this is easier?
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Start a new thread please Jill, it will make problem solving easier.

As administrator you can add as well as remove other users and you do not necessarily have to use the command line.

During my time with Ubuntu (and other distros) I have had to create a new user identity for myself as well as a new home directory on several occasions. The reason, experimentation and fiddling about with things not fully understood at the time. That all seems long ago now but learning never stops..

Ubuntu is very robust and reparable when seeming disaster strikes, mainly due to its modular construction and the fact that whatever you do, you do mostly in your home directory.

Tom's suggestion to install the Ubuntu Netbook Remix has merit and is worth your consideration.

Linux is not hard, it is just different.

Over and out. Andre

I kept going there and didn't know what to do once I was there. I love that machine and it was flawless for me, now after his messing, I'm glad my other mini is XP at this moment LOL

It now has mine "cynthia" as the home? with all the abilities,
/root is an administer named cliff
/newuser is an administer name newuser (really another name)

I hope that's right

I had a couple "critical errors" along the way, but it's booting up without errors now.

I shouldn't mess with the /root one right?

Over and out - famous last words ...

To find manual (man) pages type: man chmod, man usermod, etc

oh geez, no errors but it won't connect to the internet now.

WooooHoooo, nicely done :)))
Welcome to linux-land, especially the Ubuntu corner :))

I think it is easier, for me anyway, in the gui. To unlock the root user just cick on the root user, and the unlock button and type in your own password. Now click on root again and then properties and on the first tab "Account" change "Real name from "cliff" to "root", which is what it should be. Ok, close that box - back into main Users&Groups to "Add User" and add cliff and danielle as proper accounts and then just play around with their permissions :) Should be all quite easy now :)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)))