Hello all, I'm a newbie to RedHat 9.0 and like it very much!

However, I have a problem:

When I go to do anything admistrative (i.e. hardware browser, up2date), of course it asks me for my root password, but when I enter it the screen simply comes right back at me and asks for the password again. It will keep coming back, until finally I hit "cancel", when it says "unknown exit code"(?)

I am sure the root password I have is correct, I even reinstalled the system to make sure. I have tried tabbing to the OK button, clicking it with a mouse.... nothing.

Has anyone had this problem or knows some way I can override the root password? Thx in advance

Check - Caps lock and num lock?

What happens when you open a terminal as a user and type:
su -

Then enter you root password? Does it log you in?

Can you login as root from a console (Ctrl Alt F1) then (Ctrl Alt F7) to get back to the gui?

Hmmm I checked caps/number lock, and when I tried through the terminal su - (my password) is says "su - user (my password) does not exist".

Going to the console didn't work either .

I don't know, everything else works fine but obviously I need access to administrative privileges.... is there any other way you can suggest?

No - you type:
su -

PRESS RETURN

Then enter your password.

Well, I typed su -, then RETURN, and it prompts me for a password, but then I can't type anything, it just locks up. I hit return, it just goes to the next line....

sorry, I probably should've gone to Linux newbies for this question, but it is quite perplexing...

When you say it goes to a new line - does it change from:
[username@somehost username]$

to:
[root@somehost root]$

You shouldn't see anything when you type the password. If you type the wrong one it should say:
[username@somehost username]$ su -
Password:
su: incorrect password
[username@somehost username]$

You may need to put JTR to work.........JTR is a UNIX password cracker.

I get it to go:

[username@somehost username]$ su -
Password:


But at the prompt after Password, it just freezes, the only key that does anything is Enter, and that just puts it at the beginning of the next line....

What does the next line look like?

Can you copy and paste the ACTUAL output

Why? If he gets really stuck he can just reset the password.

[john@a3h33829y42al john]$ su -
Password:

That is exactly how is looks. When it prompts for Password:, the cursor doesn't respond to my keystrokes, it just sits there. This is really weird.... it's like it's defective or something .

How do I reset the password? That might do it....

1) Reboot your computer.
2) When the grub bootloader appears on the screen select the entry for your linux system - it may be the only one.
3) Press the "e" key to edit the entry.
4) Select the line beggining with "kernel".
5) Press the "e" key again
6) Type " single" no quotes
7) Press enter
8) Press "b" to boot
9) When the prompt appears type "passwd" press enter
10) Enter a new password when prompted
11) Reboot by typing "shutdown -r now"

Thanks alot!!! I'll give it a try

OK David, I tried to follow your instructions.

I selected "e" on the linux system (strangely, there are two, different versions? I picked the higher version, I also have XP on the drive).

Selected the line starting with "kernel".

Pressed "e".

this line came up:

grub edit>kernel /boot /umlinuz-2.4.20-19.9 ro root=label=/ hdc=ide-scsi

I typed "single" (no quotes) immediately after scsi, it just went to the previous screen (still highlighting the line starting with "kernel"), when I pressed "b" it booted the comp! No choice for new password

I am frustrated. Could it be because of my hard drive config? I have the Linux Swap partition first (1024 mb, I have 512 ram), the XP (NTFS) partition next, then the Linux Partition (ext3), then a FAT32 partition to share files between the OS's. Isn't it strange that I get two linux choices when I sign in the grub loader? I am going to reboot right now and note what the choices are exactly and repost.

Thanks for all your help so far David

did you include the space or did you type:
ide-scsisingle

it should be:
ide-scsi single

note the space before "single"