No terminals (except X) after installing NVIDIA drivers

borouts · 08-22-2004, 01:33 PM

I just finished installing NVIDIA drivers on Fedora Core 2.
Il all works fine but I can't login to the terminals except the graphical one.

When I push CTRL+ALT+F1 for instance, the screen goes completely black and nothing happens.

Did I do something wrong?

darkleaf · 08-22-2004, 01:54 PM

That's as it should be. You're running a graphical thing then and no command line terminals, which you can run from the x-environment you're using BTW. If you want to disrupt x use CTRL-ALT-BSPACE. If you have a graphical login program like xdm or kdm this can be quite hard as it starts itself up again, just keep pushing this till you see the command line. Sometimes you can get in the command line from inside X, in the logout menu.

borouts · 08-22-2004, 02:08 PM

So it's normal to be unable to logon to a terminal outside X after installing this driver?

darkleaf · 08-22-2004, 03:47 PM

Yes.

Some desktop managers allow logging into the terminal. The kde one does dor sure, for the gnome one I haven't been able to get it and xdm doesn't as far as I can find out. If you want to start in the command line remove the desktop manager. Then you can login via command line and open the graphical environment with "startx" (logging out will get you back in the command line)

You can use the xterm or another terminal emulator which is in the graphical environment to do command-line work.

You can also edit a startup file to run in another startup mode (or something) , you have to change a number there and it'll start in the command line as well

borouts · 08-22-2004, 04:13 PM

Well thanks a lot for your answers darkleaf.
You sure spare me a lot of nightmares.

mugstar · 08-22-2004, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by darkleaf
You can also edit a startup file to run in another startup mode (or something) , you have to change a number there and it'll start in the command line as well [/B]

The file is /etc/inittab, and you usually change the line init:5:default to init:3:default to change the runlevel the system boots into.

I say usually because there are differences in the identification of runlevels between distros. Example, in Mandrake the multi-user, networked, GUI'd runlevel is 5, but in SLackware it's 4. Check the comments in /etc/inittab before you alter anything.

From KDE, you can shut down the X system and drop into console-only mode by executing `telinit 3` as root, then `telinit 5` to restart X.