xServer
 

whenever i use display to set my screen resolution, at asks me to log out and restart my Xserver but I don't know how to so when I log in back it is still the same resolution.

I try using the startx command and it says the server is running already and my screen resolution is not changed

get to the login screen, and then hit ctrl-alt-delete

This should kill the running X server.

From there, you'll be at a terminal (command line) screen, and can startx again.

--Rounan

Ctrl-Alt-Del would in most cases actually reboot the system. Use Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to kill the X server.

Håkan

Sorry. My bad.

I want to stop my Xserver too, but if I press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE at login, the screen flashes. I think my Xserver is stopped and immediatly restarted. How do I get into a command line interface environment? (I use RH 8)

Ctrl-alt-F1
or ctrl-alt-F2 - F6

By default, 6 "virtual" terminals are started, each of which is independant. The x-server generally runs on hte first available virtual terminal - vt7.

Any time you want to switch to CLI, ctrl-alt-F1. To get back to X, ctrl-alt-F7

Those might vary from distro to distro and system to system, but just cycle through them to figure out which is which.

NOTE: switching to a terminal does NOT kill X. It just switches to a terminal. You can kill X from the terminal by doing:
ps -aux
kill <x-window process ID>

But if ctrl-alt-bkspc isn't doing it, that's weird.

--Rounan

Nope, I tried it again, CTRL+ALT+BCKSPC doesn't do the trick.

I used CTRL+ALT+F1 to switch to a CLI screen, but finding out which proces to kill isn't easy.

ps -aux

lists a lot of them, they don't fit on one screen. How do I find out what proces ID my Xwindow server has?

in the CLI, do
init 3 --> this goes to runlevel 3 (multiuser without X)
then fo
init 5 --> this goes to runlevel 5 (multiuser with X) and this is normally what u run

PS: npte that this has to be done as root.

Thanks! It worked, and I learned some new stuff doing it.