Hello, some days ago I updated my laptop and the next time I switched it on it tells me my password is invalid. I tried booting in recovery mode and log in as root but the same invalid password message.
I do all my package updates via synaptic. It keeps a log of what it did but as I can't access anything I can't tell you what packages were updated. I can remember removing some old Linux images and upgrading something to do with evolution, but the rest is a blank. I Always believed that password validation was carried out by the kernel. If that is correct then some malicious event has corrupted the password files. However, what I need is some assistance on how to recover from this tragedy. My /etc files are all backed up, as is other stuff. All I can think of doing is to use another computer to create a bootable CD or USB stick, change the BIOS settings to boot from that device, and then hopefully I can stat the password files to see when they were last changed and if the alteration occurred during the last update then something is awry with a particular package. If nothing has changed then there is something awry with whatever does password validation. I don't know where synaptic keeps its log files. If somebody can tell me the path then I can list out the changes made package by package. I run amd64 testing on my laptop but also have some 32 bit libraries due to using Skype. I can't give much more information other than what I can recall from memory. Cheers, Robert
