“First off, if you’re at what appears to be a graphical
login screen, get out! You can do this by pressing
Crtl-Alt-F1, today we’ll be working on the console. You should see
something like this:”
zaphod login:
“Now type your username and password. If you only have a root
account, we need to add another user so you can’t kill your system
in the first 5 minutes. The root user has complete power of the
system, root can delete or modify or run any file on the system.
You’ll spend most of your time as a normal user, so let’s add one.
Pick a name for your account, less then or equal to 8 characters.
(Everything after and including the # is a comment, don’t type
it).”
$adduser blackmad # the syntax is adduser
“Now answer the questions it asks you, including what you want
the password to be. Logout (either hit Crtl-D or type logout
(enter)), and log back in as the user you just created. If you want
to change your password, just type ‘passwd’ at the prompt. If
you’re root and want to change another user’s password, type
‘passwd’ followed by the username who’s password you want to
change.”