Basic initial questions about GUI

deWin · 02-28-2004, 12:03 AM

So I installed RHL9 on my machine and chose to have KDE and Gnome both as my GUI. Gnome is the default GUI, so how do i go to KDE, or is it not installed at all.

Also, how do I go to the shell, IE no GUI, just shell so I can save resources and run it as a game server easily.

I might have more questions as I go along so I'll post them here. Any help is appreciated getting a person to have a successful transition from Windows to Linux. It's hard but I've attempted too many times to quit, so I'll be using it.

Regards,
deWin

questionasker · 02-28-2004, 12:08 AM

kde hould be an option in gdm, your login manager.
as for shell, change runlevel to 4 in your /etc/itittab

deWin · 02-28-2004, 12:11 AM

Thanks for the quick response, I appreciate it.

Now where do I find the GDM?

For shell, changing runlevel to 4 in /etc/itittab will make shell the default, correct? If I do that, and boot to shell, how would I go back to GUI without changing files? What I mean is, what would be the command to do that, startx or something?

detpenguin · 02-28-2004, 12:29 AM

gdm is the gnome desktop manager...

you can find kde at login...at the bottom of the login screen, it should say something like "session"...click that and you can chose kde, gnome and some others...

as for starting X, at login prompt, type gdm or kde or startx and that should get you into a gui...

deWin · 02-28-2004, 12:44 AM

awesome! Just one more. How do I go into shell without permanently changing files or defaulting it.

questionasker · 02-28-2004, 10:48 AM

CTRL+ALT+F1 to go to shell.
CTRL+ATL+F7 to go back to gui.

deWin · 03-01-2004, 04:53 PM

Thanks so much. Just a little question about the changing from shell to gui and vice versa. Does it actually unload the GUI from the memory?

Genesee · 03-01-2004, 05:01 PM

no - X should still be running. try it, and run "ps aux" to check. but you can kill it via the "kill" command or maybe ctrl-alt-bkspce (I think thats the key combination

)

then you can restart it via "startx" for example

deWin · 03-01-2004, 06:32 PM

startx took me to a wierd GUI that had nothing on it. I'll try it again though.

questionasker · 03-01-2004, 09:06 PM

probably twm, or such.
just the default from startx.

try startkde or startgnome or gdm or kdm

deWin · 03-01-2004, 11:42 PM

Just another question about editing the /etc/itittab. will i be able to CTRL+ALT+F7 to go to my gui if i change this file to 4?

deWin · 03-01-2004, 11:57 PM

sorry for double posting. I changed the inittab file and now i'm able to run it in shell but when i type gdm, it says "Only root wants to run gdm". Of course I'm not logged in as root but want to be able to run it as user as well. How do i do that?

gdm does run with root, I checked. Now I have another question. Once I run gdm, is there a way to unload it from memory without killing the process? I mean killing sounds a bit harsh that's all, or is killing normal?

Demonbane · 03-02-2004, 12:11 AM

That's a security thing, you most likely don't want normal users to be able to run something that looks like your login manager, but is actually a malicious program that captures your password and mails it out. On runlevel 4 in Redhat no GUI is loaded, therefore CTRL+ALT+F7 only takes you to a blank screen.
If you want to start KDE by running "startx" try this:

Code:

echo "startkde" > ~/.xinitrc && startx

for GNOME substitude "startkde" with "gnome-session"

Demonbane · 03-02-2004, 12:23 AM

I think by default the command "kill" issues a SIGTERM to the process, which basically tells to process to close any files it may have open, and generally finish whatever its doing before shutting down itself, so its not as bad as it sounds.

deWin · 03-02-2004, 12:31 AM

ok kill gdm didn't work, it didn't find the PID. I checked in the "top" list and gdm was not there, but it was running I'm sure.