I'm posting this in case anyone that loaded Ubuntu (Linux) since the recent thread missed it. Yesterday, a bug was found in which the password you first set up is visible in plain text in a file. There are now patches available. I just installed it yesterday, and had the bug. I deleted the affected file. The patches are supposed to take care of it. IIRC, the file is /var/log/installer/cdebconf/questions.dat. Google ubuntu bugs to verify that.
Pete Keillor