Stuck in terminal - turned on text desktop by accident
 

This my sound like a silly question but for someone stuck in windows for so long i have never came had to worry about the terminal b4. However, i have managed to get myself stuck in the greenbackgrounded SuSE 9.1 termial on startup because i turned off the graphical desktop (rather foolishly i know see). Could someone help fix this problem?

in the /etc/inittab change the default runlevel to 5

if this works i'll be forever thankfull. i spend 2hours looking at the pretty green terminal window wanting to destoy it.

thanks

problem, i'm probly just doing this wrong but when i get to /etc/ and type 'cd inittab' it just says 'permission denied'

Hi!
Fellow Newbie here....

inittab is a file (sorry - it's the standard way files are written in Linux...)

You'll have to edit using vi or whetever editor you're familiar with. Or be really lazy and copy the file to your Windoze partition, change in on notepad and copy it back.

But that's just being REALLY noob! ;-)

Good luck - it's easy to change though.

P.S. if you want to get to the desktop, type startx - should work straightaway.

inittab is not a directory, so you are not likely to have directory-change permissions on it. Edit the inittab file using an editor like nano.

Alternatively, type to get back to a GUI (this will only work until the next reboot).

NEVER use windows editors to change UNIX text files, especially system files.

Also, you'll have to be root to edit the file.

startx didnt work as there was some problem with a link to a bin in /ver/X11R6/bin/x i think
how do u edit in the terminal? edit inittab ?

use vi or pico or one of the many many console edittors.

tried typing 'pico inittab' in /etc/ and just got the command error message

try full paths, pico /etc/inittab as root should do it.

if you cannot use startx, this probably means something is wrong with your X-windows.

try:
telinit 5
or:
init 5
if you get errors you can't use graphical mode (5), and it's pointless to edit inittab.

if you can use graphical mode login as root and alter the inittab.

pico is not the de-facto editor of linux.
you need to have pine installed in order to have pico.

better learn how to use vi.

What kind of error do u get?

Hi dinkydarko!

You could also change the runlevel using yast:

login as root
type 'yast'
select 'system' 'runlevel-editor'
change to 'expert-mode' (Alt+highlighted key)
select runlevel 5 as default runlevel
exit yast
type init 5

the netxt reboot you should get automatically into graphical mode

Maybe the options are named a little different, I do not have an english version right now.

i'll try going into a little more detail about the problem.
I was getting an error mesage on start up SuSE 9.1 telling me that my monitor wasnt reporing x values which might cause problems. i went into Yast and reprobled my graphics settings and then (foolishly) told it to use text decktop instead (learn from errors). at the time it told me i could change this but i was too fast with my clicking to read how. now it starts in run level 3.

when i try 'startx' i get the error message i mentioned above about the link not working,
i dont think i have pico or any other editor as having tried all the onese mentioned i get the same error message, commmand unregognised or soemting alson those lines. help :(

Strange since pico is usually a standard console editor in suse. What do you get when you just type pico? But anyway, you may also re-configure your graphics using yast -> hardware -> graphics (or what ever it is called in english).

But if startx doesn't work, there might be another problem. Could you post the exact error message please?