a way to reset main profile to blank but keep everything else ?

Shadowmeph · 03-23-2016, 01:15 PM

A while back I received a PC which I fixed ( hobby of mine) and installed Linux Mint on it, I am currently a windows user and haven't played around with Linux in a long time, but for testing to make sure that the system was stable I installed a bunch of games and web browsers and such,but doing so I ended up getting addicted to playing around with Linux and ended up putting some personal info via web browsing plus other things I am planing on donating this PC to the Building I live in but I am not sure how to reset everything so that the profile I use is gone and all of the web browser settings ( bookmarks and such) are also gone, I don't want any of my personal info on this system. I also would like tto keep all of the games on the system.
Is there a while to do this like removing or resetting my profile so that everything will still be there but my info will not , or will I have to reinstall Linux then reinstall everything all over again?
I am currently going to be heading to work so I might not be able to get back to the forum until tomorrow so if I don't reply this is why

schneidz · 03-23-2016, 01:23 PM

when i donated to good will. i used dd to write 0's to the whole disk and re-installed fedora (too many horror stories of people who fished taxed returns/naughty photos from donated pc's).

i think casually you would only need to create a new user then delete the old user and remove the /home/shadowmeph directory.

Habitual · 03-23-2016, 01:29 PM

Boot with a LiveCD and run gparted.
Make it your b*tch.

Shadowmeph · 03-23-2016, 02:10 PM

I guess that
it is allot safer to just reinstall the hole OS

hydrurga · 03-23-2016, 02:40 PM

If you're concerned about your personal data, then I would throw a live CD/DVD/USB stick of Darik's Boot and Nuke at the disk before re-partitioning, re-formatting and re-installing.

BW-userx · 03-23-2016, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowmeph

A while back I received a PC which I fixed ( hobby of mine) and installed Linux Mint on it, I am currently a windows user and haven't played around with Linux in a long time, but for testing to make sure that the system was stable I installed a bunch of games and web browsers and such,but doing so I ended up getting addicted to playing around with Linux and ended up putting some personal info via web browsing plus other things I am planing on donating this PC to the Building I live in but I am not sure how to reset everything so that the profile I use is gone and all of the web browser settings ( bookmarks and such) are also gone, I don't want any of my personal info on this system. I also would like to keep all of the games on the system.
Is there a while to do this like removing or resetting my profile so that everything will still be there but my info will not , or will I have to reinstall Linux then reinstall everything all over again?
I am currently going to be heading to work so I might not be able to get back to the forum until tomorrow so if I don't reply this is why

in your home directory that you have for that system, just delete everything within it.

better yet you could even

Code:

adduser NewGenericUserName
passwd NewGenericUserName

then log in to that account, then 
userdel -r OldUsername

thus deleting everything within that account, all of the config files that hold information are gone. this is all done in root or sudo command line in a terminal stuff

Keeping the system intact. or you could do the DOD wipe on your HDD then leave it blank for them to figure it out, or better yet. Put windows 3.1 on it afterwords.

hydrurga · 03-23-2016, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BW-userx

all of the config files that hold information are gone.

I beg to differ, BW. Some of the inode table info is changed for each file, marking the file as deleted and rendering it invisible to a normal working system, but most of the file's inode table and, more importantly, its underlying data blocks, is not deleted.

If you're concerned about data privacy, then you should really be over-writing the remaining info on the device.

BW-userx · 03-23-2016, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

I beg to differ, BW. Some of the inode table info is changed for each file, marking the file as deleted and rendering it invisible to a normal working system, but most of the file's inode table and, more importantly, its underlying data blocks, is not deleted.

If you're concerned about data privacy, then you should really be over-writing the remaining info on the device.

bookmarks and such... what kind where/are they

well yes you're right of course, but I did mod my post, as well as most do not go looking that deep into a used system. but to get rid of the bookmarks and such DOD wipes are good too.

suicidaleggroll · 03-23-2016, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

I beg to differ, BW. Some of the inode table info is changed for each file, marking the file as deleted and rendering it invisible to a normal working system, but most of the file's inode table and, more importantly, its underlying data blocks, is not deleted.

If you're concerned about data privacy, then you should really be over-writing the remaining info on the device.

Yes absolutely he should wipe the remaining space on the disk, but that's pretty straight forward. Once all of the files/dirs you want to clean up have been deleted, just boot to a live cd, mount the volume, and as root run:

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/mount/point/verybigfile.bin bs=1M

It'll throw an error when the disk runs out of space, at which point just delete the file ("/path/to/mount/point/verybigfile.bin" in the above example). That'll overwrite any files marked as deleted with zero so it's irrecoverable (without very specialized equipment at least).