Is There A Way To Erase Ubuntu From Your Netbook Without Administrator Password?
 

My parents have a netbook running some GNOME Ubuntu but when they got the computer they didn't get a admin password or root password. They only used it for basic web ish so never needed more than basic clicking skills but now its just garbage so I'm trying to delete everything and put some new Linux-Like on. If someone could explain how to do this without the admin password it would be appreciated

An option would be installing a new distro via USB, or network, even CD-ROM if you have an external drive. Get into the BIOS settings of the netbook and change the boot order to whicher option is applicable to your situation. Download a distro of your choice and install. As long as the proper partition is selected the previous Linux install will be overwritten. As long as there is no BIOS password then you should be fine. Unless there is a more direct approach that could crack the admin password, that's all that I can suggest.

Hope this helps

Unless it's a bios password all you have to do to erase it is use something like gparted-live-cd or usb & erase the partitions. If you are trying to erase them from the OS it won't do it because your partitions are mounted.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Well, perhaps we should start at the beginning.
Ubuntu doesn't use the root user - everything can be done by the normal user via the "sudo" interface.

It can be upgraded, or replaced as above, but may not actually be necessary.

i already have the distro i want and can put it on a usb but how do i get to BIOS settings to see if there is a BIOS password and to change boot order.

i cant use sudo command because i dont have the password

sudo uses the user password, not the "root" password.

As for the BIOS, watch the bottom of the "splash" screen (when you power the machine on) for a message indication which key (F2, Del, F9 ...) to use. With luck it'll have a key for the boot menu itself.
You have to hit the key whilst the splash is showing - not much time.

Boot Menu reads:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-Hard Drive
-USB Storage
-CD/DVD/CD-RW
-Removable Devices
-Network Boot
-Diagnostics
<Enter Setup>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have the new distro on a usb
what boot menu selectable must i chose to write over the old ubuntu

Just move the USB entry above the "Hard Drive". They are selected in order.
You can leave it that way, as if there is no bootable USB, it will work down the list and use the hard-drive.

Each BIOS is different - you'll have to play around until you find what works.

syg00 is giving good advice. Just to check here.

When you say boot menu, it may not be the best choice on all systems. Normally you have to power off a system. Connect the usb and THEN go to the actual bios menu, not the boot menu. Find the order of hard drives and then move the usb up in the order to first. (what syg00 said)

Some boot menu's may offer ways to select a usb but many will not. In almost all cases I find the system has to be powered off and some cases not even a simple reboot works.


Also did you test this usb, is it known to be working?


As syg00 stated before you may already have access to the entire system.

If you want to look at the BIOS, the menu selection would be "Enter Setup." If there is a BIOS password, that will ask for one.

Odds are there isn't. Most persons don't know what BIOS is and only the clinically paranoid password protect the BIOS on a home computer. If the bad guy is in your house mucking about in the BIOS of your computer, you have physical security problems that outweigh your computer security problems.

More than likely, if you boot to a bootable USD drive or CD (my netbook will quite happily boot to a CD when I connect a portable CD drive), you can just install from that.

Edit: You cannot erase a distribution from inside the distribution.

You overwrite it from the outside, by deleting the partition, repartitioning, and installing something new.

You can severely damage it from the inside, but you cannot remove all traces of it.

Easiest thing to do, is to use the "edit" option in the Grub bootmenu.
Make sure you replace whatever follows the "init=" with: "init=/bin/bash"

This way you will boot into a shell with root privileges.
Mount whatever you need and run "passwd root". This will set a new root password :)
Reboot the machine as usual, open a shell and type "su". You will be prompted for the root password and that's it!

Ubuntu uses 'sudo' and enters passwd. Your parent should have it.

Use USB booted disk manager (gParted, or another) from it you can delete the partition where Ubunto is installed and replace it with another Linux from the USB itself.

On my EEEPC to boot from USB you hit F2 on startup to enter BIOS, navigate to "Boot" in the BIOS setup and go, somewhat confusingly, to "Hard Disk Drives" then change the order so that "USB:ClvrStuf USB" is first (for you it will probably be "USB:" then the drive manufacturer name). Then press F10 to save and exit and the EEE should boot from the USB device.
I thought I'd mention this because it took me ages to work out where the option to boot from USB was.