On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 06:16:00PM +0100, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Thursday 11 March 2004 18.09, Peter N. Spotts wrote:

...

What's the best way to disengage that screen so that when SuSE 9.0 finishes booting up, I have a prompt that asks me to log in, then gives me another prompt at which I would type startx?

Edit /etc/inittab, look for the line that says

id:5:initdefault:

and change the 5 to a 3

That's a grossly oversimplified answer. I hope no one would make this sort of change without having at least a basic understanding of what's going on behind the scenes. Here is what needs to be known: * To boot without starting X11, boot into runlevel 3 instead of runlevel 5. * To do so as a one-time event, you can specify the runlevel to your boot manager (LILO or GRUB) at boot time. * To make this the default action, change your system's default runlevel to 3. * The default runlevel is defined in /etc/inittab. Runlevels, in essence, specify which services should be running. In SuSE, runlevel 5 is multiuser with network and xdm (X Display Manager), and runlevel 3 is multiuser with network. You can use YaST to make this change. In YaST (I'm using version ui-ncurses-2.8.20), it's done at: System Runlevel Editor Expert Mode Set default runlevel after booting to: This is covered in the SuSE Unofficial FAQ at http://susefaq.sourceforge.net/faq/admin.html#runlevel_change. The following is taken from the SuSE Administrator Guide (I'd provide a URI, but I can't find it published anywhere on SuSE's Web site -- can anyone help?): In Linux, runlevels define how the system is started. After booting, the system starts as defined in /etc/inittab in the line initdefault. Usually this is 3 or 5 (see Table 12.1). An alternative to this is assigning a special runlevel at boot time (e.g. , at the boot prompt). The kernel passes any parameters it does not need directly to init. To change runlevels while the system is running, enter init with the appropriate number. Only the superuser is allowed to do this. init 1 starts single user mode, which is used for the maintenance and administration of your system. After finishing work in S mode, the system administrator can change the runlevel to 3 again by typing init 3. Now all essential programs are started and users can log in and work with the system. Table 12.1 below gives an overview of available runlevels. Runlevel 2 should not be used on a system with a /usr partition mounted via NFS. Runlevel Meaning 0 System halt S Single user mode; from boot prompt with US keyboard layout 1 Single user mode 2 Local multiuser without remote network (standard) 3 Full multiuser with network 4 Unused 5 Full multiuser mode with network and xdm 6 System reboot Halt the system using init 0 or reboot it with init 6. Runlevel 5 is the default runlevel in all SuSE Linux standard installations. It allows users to log in directly to a graphical user interface. If you have already installed and configured the X Window System properly as described in 5) and want users to log in via a graphical user interface, change the runlevel to 5. Try it first by typing init 5 to see whether the system works as expected. Afterwards, set the default runlevel to 5 in YaST. -- Phil Mocek

On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 07:07:44PM +0100, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Thursday 11 March 2004 19.03, Phil Mocek wrote:

...

Here is what needs to be known:

that's a very peculiar definition of the word 'need'. If someone asks a simple question, I usually try to give a simple answer. Most of the time, people just want things done. Give a 1000 word answer to a 3 word question, and people will go back to windows

I thought my summary was very succinct. (quoting myself):

* To boot without starting X11, boot into runlevel 3 instead of runlevel 5. * To do so as a one-time event, you can specify the runlevel to your boot manager (LILO or GRUB) at boot time. * To make this the default action, change your system's default runlevel to 3. * The default runlevel is defined in /etc/inittab.

The rest of my message was just supporting information. I should have stated that explicitly, but didn't. My mistake. The beauty of GNU/Linux is that you *can* tell what's going on behind the scenes. Blindly editing some cryptic setting in some previously-unhead-of file is not much much better than doing surgery in Windows' registry. Get people accustomed to doing things without knowing why or what the implications are and they may as well ``go back to Windows''. [Now that I think about it, I should add: Changing the default runlevel must be done as root. Linux, a regular user isn't allowed to make changes to the system configuration.] -- Phil Mocek

On Thursday 11 March 2004 19.27, Peter N. Spotts wrote:

Even now @ runlevel3, when exit Fluxbox, I do not go back to a black screen with pspotts@?> , as I would on distros past. Instead, I get the graphical "select a window manager" screen.

'select a window manager'??? No 'login/password'? It's not kdm that's running? If it is kdm that's somehow starting in runlevel 3, switch to a text mode login with ctrl-alt-f1, log in as root and run 'rcxdm stop' to stop the graphical login, and run 'insserv -r xdm' to make it not start at boot

amen to that On Thu, 2004-03-11 at 11:07, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Thursday 11 March 2004 19.03, Phil Mocek wrote:

...

Here is what needs to be known:

that's a very peculiar definition of the word 'need'. If someone asks a simple question, I usually try to give a simple answer. Most of the time, people just want things done. Give a 1000 word answer to a 3 word question, and people will go back to windows -- john bright

On Thursday 11 March 2004 21.39, S.R.Glasoe wrote:

I no longer have the session type available in SUSE 9.0, KDE 3.2's Control Center, System Administrator, Login Manager and then I can't remember which tab it was under - Shutdown?, Users?, ?

I think it was under users, but you're right, it went away in kde 3.2 The idea is to set up a session management scheme that can be shared between all the different display managers If you look in /opt/kde3/share/apps/kde3/sessions you'll find all the session scripts that are currently available. The way it works now is that when kdm starts the greeter window, it runs through all the scripts in that dir (and any other dis configured as a session dir in kdmrc) and checks if the executable it references is valid (i.e. found in kdm's path, the path is also configurable in kdmrc). If it is, then it's presented as a choice in the greeter window. This is why kdm is slower than hardened molasses in 3.2. It seems to take an eternity to run through those session files.

Peter N. Spotts wrote:

Thanks Damon, but that was part of the problem. I *was* at run-level 3 now I am even more confused than ever. Are you saying that even though you were at run level 3, you were still getting a graphical logon screen?

(although I didn't specify that in my original post).. Anders managed to offer the solution that worked for me. You are very good, Anders. How did you figure this out? Am I correct in thinking that the part of his solution that worked for you was adding Fluxbox as session type and that tampering with /etc/inittab was not needed since you were already at run level 3?

Damon Register

* Peter N. Spotts (Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 07:33:45AM -0500)

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 06:39:15 -0500 Damon Register wrote:

...

Are you saying that even though you were at run level 3, you were still getting a graphical logon screen?

I wasn't getting the graphical logon screen on boot-up, but I was going directly into Fluxbox. In the past, I'd have to type my user name and password at a system prompt, and then type startx, to begin the X session. And when I exited Fluxbox, I would get the graphical logon screen, not a system prompt. All this while in runlevel 3.

In other words, you had (somehow) managed to start fluxbox as the lasts tep of your bootlevel 3 init path. Either fluxbox comes iwth it's own config/installer that sticks an S99fluxbox into /etc/rc3.d (or similar) or you manually maanged to do so. Currently listening to: ptree021112 106 Gravity Eyelids Gerhard, (faliquid@xs4all.nl) == The Acoustic Motorbiker == -- __O What show of the soul are we gonna get from you =`\<, It could be deliverance, or hisory under these skies so blue, (=)/(=) But if I know you, you'll bang the drums, like monkeys do

The Friday 2004-03-12 at 15:33 +0100, Anders Johansson wrote:

I'd be more inclined to think he had somehow managed to get kdm set to autologin.

Though why it would start in runlevel 3 is completely beyond me

He used startx, remember. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson