Booting in text mode versus graphics mode
 

I installed Fedora Core 3 yesterday and the graphics mode starts when the OS boots. Everything appears to have gone just fine. Very nice!

Today I want to start to focus on the command line side of Linux and I'm wondering how I can get the machine to boot in text mode now instead of graphics mode. It would be great if I had a choice depending upon what I need to do.

How do I do this?

Thanks

Lee

Hi.

Have a look at /etc/inittab
You'll see a line like:
id:5:initdefault:

Change the 5 to 3 to boot into a console.

Dave

why not just use an xterm or seven for the moment?

Boot in graphics mode; start a Terminal window
 

Until you get good at using Linux commands, it's much easier to boot in graphical mode, and start a Terminal window (Applications/System Tools/Terminal). That way you can use commands to control the system while you still have the full gui available. You can even do things like selecting text in the Terminal window, switching to a gedit window, and using the middle mouse button to paste the text into gedit.

If you want to practice with a "pure" console or you need one because the gui has locked up, you can get one by keying Ctrl-Alt-F3. When you are done, you can go back to graphical mode with Ctrl-Alt-F7.