Ubuntu access

[dom at latter.org]

Paul wrote:
> On 23/01/10 22:35, Stephen Russon wrote:
>> I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard
>> drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted
>> these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused
>> to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the
>> program. Most grateful for any solutions
> 
> a typical problem is when people use the hash key in a password and the 
> keymaps changes, so you started off in GB and ended up in US or vice 
> versa; try typing the password in the username box temporarily and 
> compare shift-3 with the hash key.

I tend to avoid "funny characters" entirely for this sort of reason.
In fact I reckon 8 characters of lower-case alphanumeric is good
enough for most situations, and that making the password longer is
just as effective as using capital letters etc.

Some maths:
  8 x [a-z0-9]    = 2.8 x 10^12
  8 x [a-zA-Z0-9] = 2.2 x 10^14
  9 x [a-z0-9]    = 1.0 x 10^14
10 x [a-z0-9]    = 3.7 x 10^15