Hello all, i am brand new to Linux and just installed Kali on an old laptop, the install went fine with no errors but when i boot and select Kali from the GRUB menu i get a screen saying:
after this i tried the passwords i created during the install and i always get the message:
Any help would be great, but i dont know much about linux so baby steps would be great
Thanks.

Also if it matters the version of Kali i used was: Kali Linux 64 bit
I made the boot usb with: Win32DiskImager 0.9.5
The laptop is a: Asus M51V
and the guide i used:
http://docs.kali.org/installation/ka...d-disk-install

If you are new to Linux why did you choose Kali ?. And why an encrypted setup ?.
Making things complicated hardly qualifies as "baby steps".

To unlock the encrypted container requires the passphrase you entered - not the root password. If you can't remember it, or get it accepted, you have no option but to re-install from scratch.

I do security testing with windows and i wanted to try Kali to see if it was any better for the job, and i had it encrypted because why not.

i have reinstalled Kali twice with the same issues, tried every password and nothing. I'm not sure if this is supposed to happen but it doesn't actually look like I'm typing anything, no visual input at all until i hit enter.

That's normal for Linux - your input is being accepted, but pass{word,phrase} is never echoed. Not even asterisks as you may be used to.
If I get bored over the weekend I may try a Kali install using those instructions, and report back.

Thanks for verifying that, do you know about the whole "Volume group not found" thing?

also i found a fix online but i don't understand it:

manually map the luks container while in the initramfs prompt with:
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/<partition> <partition>_crypt
vgchange -ay
exit

if you happen to have the chance would you mind explaining how to access the initramfs prompt?

Not knowing about the password non-echo implies you haven't spent a lot of time on docs.kali.org
If you are going to paddle in this pool, you'd better be prepared to investigate the available doco.

Initramfs is a pre-cursor to loading the kernel so some setup can be done first. I've not looked at Kali, but I did play with it's predecessor some time back. It'll take hours for the iso to download here so I've respond sometime later over the weekend once I've had a look.

yeah i kind of had the crazy idea to install it and learn how to use it after, i didn't realize that i would need any special knowledge to just turn my computer on :P

Ok well after some trial and error i got it working, you have to not have any separate partitions for /home or anything else.

Oh, you can have /home on separate partitions. But it may depend on what else got scattered around.

For desktops, it is best to have only /home on a separate partition as it helps protect your files during updates.

But splitting the others up depends on how the distribution was designed to handle it. Some do, some don't (most don't unless you are setting up a server, and even then the one usually separated is /var).

Having multiple encrypted filesystems also means you have to enter the access keys for each one at boot and you can't mix up the keys...

Having a single filesystem for everything simplifies that.

The way the system boots is that:
1. the kernel is copied into memory
2. the initrd is copied into memory
3. the kernel then decompresses the initrd into a memory resident filesystem that it mounts for root.
4. the initrd is deallocated
5. the root /sbin/init gets executed - and this has to set everything else up. Loading drivers for devices identified, asking for password keys for encrypted filesystems (gets complicated), and mounts a disk/ssd/sdcard resident root (the operational/real root) filesystem. Once that is completed, it can then do what is called a "pivot root" which exchanges the mount point of the real root filesystem for the memory resident root. Then the memory resident root gets dismounted (which frees up the rest of the memory used during boot other than the kernel).

The init process then executes the /sbin/init from the real root; which then starts up the rest of the services (any additional mounts, various devices such as cameras and such that are not needed during the initial boot).

The problem you may have had was that the initrd wasn't expecting to have multiple encrypted filesystems...

Virtualbox.

Works like a charm!-