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(solved) HOW DO I CHANGE THE SUDO PASSWORD FOR MY STEAM DECK WITHOUT KNOWING THE OLD PASSWORD??????

hi so i wanna change the sudo password for my steam deck but its forcing me to put the old password AND I DIDNT PUT ANY PASSWORD BEFORE so I NEED HELP

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5 comments
  • If you haven’t set a password before, then it should be the default one: empty. Then, to use sudo you will need to set one by using passwd command.

    In case if the password was set in the past: the only way would be to run factory reset, or restore from image.

    • i tried running passwd deck then trying sudo passwd deck and it worked :D tysm

    • Booting from any rescue Linux system and removing or editing /etc/shadow in the overlay partition would work as well. No need for a factory reset.

  • Have you installed anything else on your deck already in desktop mode, like Decky loader, emudeck, cryoutilities/etc?

    Some of those have an option to set a default password to something like "deck". If you clicked through the setup on those it might have set a password without you realizing.

    edit: Decky loader can temporarily set the password to "Decky!". It's supposed to remove the temp password after installation, but that's worth trying if you installed Decky. Right now I don't see a default password for emudeck or cryoutilities, but it's possible other deck install scripts might set one.

    • i do have deckyloader, i also know it sets the password temporarily to "Decky!" i tried that and it didnt work D:, i didnt try the password "deck" yet i will try that in a sec (it didnt work either)