Unable to type password at terminal prompt..
 

Hi.
I need to switch to runlevel 3 using the command `Init 3`.
The screen goes black and brings up a prompt and i can type my user name in (root), but when i try to enter the password, none of the keys will respond (apart from enter, which is no good when i cant enter the password first!)...

My password screens for the main login etc work fine!

I suspect that your keystrokes are going in, but are not being echoed---same thing happens when you su, followed by password.

type the password and hit enter---see if it works.

Thanks. Thats all it was!
:newbie:

I get this problem to, nothing shows up when I type and even when I do type it and enter it says authentication failed. I'm very new to linux / ubnutu. When I just try typing the password and entering, it says the command wasn't found. I'm running on ubuntu cause I had it installed but never used it and windows isn't working because of a video card problem and i'm just trying to update firefox.

If you are using Ubuntu you should use 'sudo'. Open a terminal and type: sudo, you should get a prompt for your user password. Enter the password and hit the enter key. Nothing is echoed when you type the password in as pixellany explained above. If this doesn't work, then you have more serious problems.

sudo -i <Press the RETURN key> then give your password, then give the command(s) is a bit better, because it sets up root's $PATH and environment properly, so subsequent commands are more likely to work properly. exit exits from being root.