well i only set one password during setup, along with my username.

I just rebooted machine and when it asked for the user/password i entered it and it worked...

did i need to enter 2 passwords and i missed it.

5.3 imo is anything but new, therefore however reaching good stability.
5.4 should be released soonish, as RHEL 5.4 has been released recently.


What sort of software is it that only works with RH4?
Is it that old old old RH4, or we speaking RHEL4 here?

We are talking about RHEL4 AS.

No. You did not setup password for your user but for root. So there is something you are missing or have forgotten.
There is only password that you need to enter twice.

The installer should have asked you for a root password AND a user password, but no matter.

To create a new root password, you can boot into single-user mode, open a terminal and enter "passwd root". To boot into single-user mode:

Reboot
When the GRUB menu appears, hit any key to stop the count. The normal (default) sytem to be booted should be highlighted. Hit "e" for edit, select the kernel line, and enter "e" again. Add the word "single" (no quotes) at the end of this line, hit enter, and then "b". It will now come up in single-user mode with no password required.

OR, recover the ROOT password according to one of the earlier posts here......

I made a boo-boo. Should have said "recover the ROOT password". Sorry