[GLLUG] Re: Booting into text mode

Chick Tower c.tower@express56.com
Wed, 13 Feb 2002 22:08:50 -0600


I just installed Linux for the first time this weekend, Reza, so I'm a
_real_ newbie.  I have Mandrake 8.1 (which is reportedly based on Red Hat),
and it, too, immediately runs the X Window System.  I want to change that,
myself.  My login screen is even a GUI.  Here's something I found, but I
won't be back to that PC to try it for a week or two.  If you try it before
then, please report on its success or failure.  Any experienced Linux users
may feel free to straighten me out if I'm on the wrong track.

One line in the file /etc/inittab specifies the default run level.  The book
I have (A Practical Guide to Linux) says a value of 6 starts X Windows, but
I found some source that says it's 5 for Mandrake, which is the value in my
inittab.  (I don't recall the source; perhaps a doc file, a Web site, or
comments in inittab itself.)  The run level I'm going to try is 3, which is
multiuser with network support.  I expect this will let me login to a text
console every time, and then I can start X Windows from the command line if
I want to use it.  Perhaps the man page for init (the program that uses
inittab) will provide you with some information.

If what you really want to do is automatically start X Windows every time,
except when you get the garbled login screen, I don't think this alone will
solve your problem.  For that, you could use this and then have a script
that runs after you log on that starts X Windows.  I believe the command for
that is startx.

                                        Chick

----- Original Message -----
> Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 10:37:04 -0800 (PST)
> From: Reza Beha <reza_beha@yahoo.com>
> To: linux-user@egr.msu.edu
> Subject: [GLLUG] Booting into text mode
>
> When I boot into RedHat, X starts automatically.  Is
> there a key combination I can hit to jump into text
> mode without logging in?
>
> I ask this because every now and then my screen is
> garbled and I can't see anything well enough to log in
> and start a console.  If I reboot once or twice, it
> works fine.