On my first reboot on my new factory installed ThizLinux I was prompted for the user and password, I gave the default (root, thiz). Then it said you have mail, enter your ??? root #. I don't have a #, what's this extra password? is there a default #? I tried nos. 1 thru 20 without success. Until I get past this, I can't boot up. anybody know what I should enter? Thanks, Gerald Paul

Hi Gerald, Could you give the exact message? From what I see in your post there's no asking for a password. Also, when mail is asking for a password, nothing should interefere you from just working on the system (without mail that is), so something is not very clear in your post. Kind regards, Harrie

thanks for answering, Harrie. here is the way the boot text reads after about 50 lines: login: root (default) password: thiz (default) You have new mail. [root@localhost root]# _ This # is where I get stumpted. I bought this new computer for home use, I'm not part of a LAN, nor will I be. Any idea on how to get past this? What I meant in my previous post was, this mysterious # the computer wants is equivalent to an additional password. any help would be appreciated. I'm pretty skilled at Windows, but never went thru the DOS phase, so all the command lines for Linux are painful for me.

"[root@localhost root]#" is the command prompt. UNIX systems often use the # sign to indicate superuser privileges and $ to indicate normal privileges. Use the adduser command to create a normal account for yourself, then log in under that name. You could mess things up as root, so log in with a normal account as often as possible. Try the startx command; it should give you a GUI to play with. What you really need to do is look up basic Linux tutorials online. Also, the man command gives information on other commands (try man ls once), which will come in handy.

What you see is your shell prompt. By convention, the shell usually prompts with a # to signify that it's a root prompt, and uses a $ for a normal user's prompt. No need to enter a password here, it's waiting for a command. Try "pine" for a simple email client, if you have that installed. You should read up on general unix shell interface, this is essential for working with linux/unix.

thanks for the help, fellows. The startx command didn't give me a GUI, but a fatal error message. Pissed, I just took the cd and reinstalled the whole O/S. Now the boot text skips over this, and now I login with a separate window. So the problem disappeared! But thanks for the help, guys!

You should still learn the basic commands. Some things are much easier from the command prompt than a GUI.