Kill X Server
 

I'm trying to install the drivers from Nvidia for my Geforce 4 Mx 440, when I try to do it within Gnome it tells me that it detects X running. I tried booting into recovery mode but then it said it detected that I was in runlevel 1 and that I should be in at least run level 3. So I typed "telinit 3" to do so then it brought me to the login screen. So my question is, how do I get a shell open without starting the X server? Thank you so much for your help.

Oh yeah, I'm running Ubuntu Edgy.

In Ubuntu I believe that runlevel 2 is what you're looking for, despite what the Nvidia installer tells you. In most distros run level 3 is text based multiuser, but in Debian based distros it's for the full blown GUI and run level 2 is for text only multiuser.

Thank you very much! I'll try it!


Edit: It still gave me the same results as telinit 3. Any more ideas?

Thank you so much!

get to runlevel 2 and do killall Xorg.

killall xorg didn't work. bleh. I dunno if I should start another thread for a different question, but I'll just ask it here. In a fullscreen shell, how do you scroll up and down? I need to see the list of processes that ps -A shows but Page Up/ Page Down doesnt' work, and neither do the arrow keys. Any ideas?

From the xserver hit

ctrl+alt+backspace
ctrl+alt+F1
ps aux | grep 'gdm'

and

kill <gdm-process-id>

or, for KDE

ps aux | grep 'kdm'

kill <kdm-process-id>

Then

./NV*

as root, from the directory the nvidia driver is in.

Finally

gdm

for gnome

or

kdm

for KDE

But, sometimes gdm is used for KDE.

ctrl+alt+F7

to get xserver with nividia driver installed

I'll try that AwesomeMachine, but my problem now is that once I kill xorg, it comes back to life! How do I make it stay dead? Is there some other process bringing it back? I'm running Gnome, Ubuntu Edgy.

After I kill it, it restarts to the Greeting Screen/Login Screen. Thought I'd add that, incase it helps.

gdm is the service that keeps restarting x on you..


CTRL+ALT+F2 to get to a virtual terminal
Login
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop - this command will cause the X server to shutdown, you can verify by checking running processes. do whatever you need to and then restart X as follows..
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start


enjoy !!

I've always gone to Single user mode for this sort of thing (telinit 1)

From there, log in as root, and do the command sequence per instruction. I would assume that Debian's Nvidia drivers (non-free) will work the best, but you may be able to get newer ones from Nvidia (if you can make them work).

Thank you farslayer! It worked!

Just out of curiosity are you following the nVidia how to in the Ubuntu guide ?

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_E...r_.28NVIDIA.29

The Ubuntu Guide is a great resource for you if you are going to stick with Ubuntu.

No I wasn't, but it definetly looks like it has some great info in there, thank you so much!