[NTLUG:Discuss] New to Linux and seeking assistance

[Kevin E. Ivey]

On 2019/03/24 21:06, James Good wrote:
> Greetings and thank you for allowing me to join.
> 
> As a way of introduction, my name is James Good.  My amateur radio
> call sign is KD5VXH.  I live in the Northwest corner of Tarrant
> County, the Parker County/Tarrant County line is less than a mile from
> my house.
> 
> My problem:  The computer that I use had been running Windows 10, with
> all of its constant updates/upgrades.  Almost every day I would find
> at least one, sometimes more, updates/upgrades had been made to the
> operating system and somewhat related changes had been made to other
> parts of other programs on the computer.  Those changes would need to
> be corrected if I wanted those other programs to work.  Those 'other
> programs' were all amateur radio related and used for digital mode
> operations on both HF and VHF/UHF.  The updates/upgrades from
> Microsoft became so frequent and so frustrating that last week I
> located a disk that I had burned with an iso of Ubuntu 18.04.1. 
> Thursday was the day I made the change after testing Ubuntu without
> installing it.  All seemed to work just fine.  And it works better
> than it ever did with Windows (especially any version after Xp).  I
> got the install disk to install Ubuntu to the computer (of course, all
> of the Windows files, programs, and data that had been enjoyed are now
> history). Over the past two or three days, I have been trying to learn
> how this new (to me) operating system really works.  If the install
> disk asked or prompted for a 'user password' during the install
> process, I don't remember seeing it.  And now, any time I try to add
> anything new using the Terminal application, I am asked for my
> password.  As stated, I don't remember seeing a prompt to enter a
> password during the install process.  Now, not knowing what that
> password might be (if one was set) it appears that there is very
> little I would be able to actually do other than a complete
> re-install.
> 
> Is there any way to view the passwords that might be on the computer? 
> And how could I change any password already set if I can't get into
> the 'root' directory to make the change?
> 
> Thank you in advance,
> 
> James Good KD5VXH


Howdy James!

I am an amateur radio operator (K4IVE) and I use all the fldigi 
applications on Linux for most of my digital mode ops.  I do not use 
Ubuntu.

Ubuntu uses a non-privileged user and requires the user to use the 
"sudo" command to make root user inputs.  Other Linux distributions 
allow direct root user access to the system.

There is a control panel application for viewing and modifying user 
attributes.  If you can't change (add) your password there and the 
command line passwd command won't do it, then you will need to ask 
Ubuntu users how to get where you want to be...

Since I don't use Ubuntu, I can't help you beyond that, but you will 
quickly learn that the Linux community can get you an answer in seconds 
if you ask on the supporting forums of here on the user groups mail 
list...

Try shopping around with a few different Linux distributions and check 
out how they differ.  Debian has lots of ham radio apps in its 
repositories that other distros don't have.

Someone here on the mail list will have an answer for your password 
question, so stick around!

73,

Kevin
K4IVE