[NTLUG:Discuss] root password in Knoppix

[Robert Citek]

On Jul 20, 2005, at 8:15 PM, Peter A. Koren wrote:
> I put a Knoppix based live DVD -- Quantian Knoppix -- in the DVD drive
> and booted right in to the KDE desktop as the user "Knoppix". When I
> tried to access some directories on one various partitions, I ran  
> into a
> permissions problem. When I tried to become root, I realized that I do
> not have the password. What to do?

I do not know how Quantian differs from Knoppix, but in Knoppix  
neither the knoppix user nor root has a password. You can verify that  
with grep and look for an asterisk in the second field:

  root at tty1[/]# grep -e root -e knoppix /etc/shadow
  root:*:11456:0:99999:7:::
  knoppix:*:11593:0:99999:7:::

When you boot into KDE as knoppix, you can become root in a number of  
ways:

  1) open up a Konsole window and type 'sudo su -' at the prompt
  2) click on K > Run Command, and type 'sudo konsole'
  3) enter a virtual console, e.g. Ctrl-Alt-F2

Let us know what works for you using Quantian.

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org/downloads
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