Well, here it is. I have a macBook Pro running Yosemite 10.10.5. I have partitioned my hard drive to load Linux 18.2. Everything went well until after a couple months i tried to get back on it and I forgot my password. I went through the sequence: reboot, press esc after the white screen turns off, press e, scroll down and remove ro ...... handoff... line and replace it with rw init=/bin/bash and then press F10. Then I entered passwd and when prompted I simply pressed a. when asked again I entered a again. (to keep it simple)...All this with no success since it is repetitively goes back to ( i don't exactly remember the term now) something like root: none.... Then I enter exit and it switches to Mac. I try again and then it does the whole thing until the moment I press F10 the whole screen goes blank (dark). No command to change this, only holding the shutdown button...
Any input? Should I attempt to reload Linux? I tried to start anew by eliminating the partition named diskOs5 but it says it cannot do that since it journaled. i cannot seem to disable this.
Really, all I want is to get back on linux 18.2
Thanks,
Daveed

don't worry i'm using it. i'll give it to you when i'm done.

(i hope you didn't encrypt linux drive)

Your apple's Sierra OS has plenty of BSD unix commands (even chroot), but i don't explain how.

Your easiest route is to boot off a rescue disk (anonymous unix login). Once logged in you can do any number of things to effect a change in password. The first step of which is to mount(1) the disk so you have access to it. From there you can chroot to the (disk inside apple), then run typical commands to specify password (being root you'll not be required to have old one, depending on options maybe)

weigh the above with how long it takes you personally to achieve those goals (get rescue disk, use rescue disk) againt the time it takes you personally to re-install the OS of preference

X-LFS, you know you can edit posts, right?
no need to post 3 in a row in less than 10min.
and your first reply would have been better discarded, no?

but i agree, it could be that the password asked for is the disk encryption password.
really hard (impossible) to get around that if forgotten. otherwise, what would be the point of encryption.

Well, I am so sorry but after many days... I still cannot make sense out of what is being said here. Not that people are not trying but my tech knowledge is more step by step. ( I am not as young as I used to be...) thank you all for putting your words here.
To my knowledge , I have not encrypted anything. Still at this point, I think my only solution now maybe to erase everything ( after a solid back-up that is ) and start anew... Unless you can direct me to a post that explains it all.... I do not want to prolong this post much longer. I do appreciate people's input though. Thanks again!

Boot to a install or rescue disk (search for that here on LQ or on the 'net -- I don't have the know-how to share).
I just read some step-by-step instructions on another post, but I'm not finding it now. Essentially, once the 'puter is booted to the rescue disk, you'll be able to set the password on the installed Linux instance.

Maybe someone will post better instructions here...but what I'm remembering was a post in the last day or so.

PS: #4 has a point. If you haven't used the 'puter in so long that you've forgotten the password, maybe reinstall would be quickest...surely your last backup would be sufficient.

Well, thanks X-LFS 2010, scasey and ondoho! This is more help than I could have just by myself! Rescue disk may be a go... we'll let you know...

If you've got Internet and can download a disc image, I strongly recommend SystemRescueCD. It's got loads of useful tools in it. Burn it to a disc, boot from it, then follow the step-by-step instructions in post #3.