I've been using Ubuntu for about a year, and I'm sick of the bleeding edge philosophy and stuff breaking as fast as it's fixed, so I've been wanting to try Debian, with one massive roadblock...

I've just installed Debian stable (64 bit), I have a Nvidia 9800 GT card, and I downloaded the latest driver. In Ubuntu, I had no problem installing any nvidia driver, by pressing CTRL+ALT+F1, then running /etc/init.d/gdm stop, etc... When trying the same approach in Debian, pressing CTRL+ALT+F1 just makes the screen go blank and the monitor goes into standby mode. The exact same thing happens if I try /etc/init.d/gdm stop from the prompt in gnome. Also, if I press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE, it doesn't work right either...same blank standby screen, and it doesn't even go back to the login screen. It does go back to the login screen, however, if I'm already at the login screen...how useful is that? So essentially, this thing WILL NOT let me have a command prompt outside of gnome and/or X server...and I need it.

This is noteably a very basic function, and majorly disappointing to not work from an OS that is heralded as so "stable." I have also tried this a couple months ago with the exact same results, clean installation both times.

Whatever it is, it's certainly not due the standard behavior. I'm running Lenny, ran Etch before that. CTRL+ALT+(F1-F6) gives me a command prompt (no X), CTRL+ALT+F7 returns me to my X-session and CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE restarts the X-session, returning to the login manager.

Sorry for not having a solution to your problem but this basic function is certainly default on a Debian system.

/CZ

That's alright, I appreciate the reply anyhoo...and I realize that--which is precisely why I find it so irritating lol. It's like getting a fancy toilet with no flusher. The only thing I could possibly think of is that I didn't actually ditch the /home directory when I did these "clean" installs, but that really should not matter. The OS partition was freshly formatted.

I'm currently upgrading this to Lenny to see if it carries any magic with it...

# telinit 1
...and enter root password. You may have to enter both the user name, root, and the password.

Thanks for that, but it turned out upgrading to Lenny solved the problem...of course, there is the issue that I should not have had to do that...but moving on, I have my nvidia driver.

Of course you shouldn't, and if you hadn't screwed something up, you would not have had to.

And what exactly is it that I screwed up? As I said, this was with a clean install. I tried after once more after deleting hidden files and such in the home directory, installing again. Same problem. I did not mess with anything; tried it first thing after the clean install booted up. I don't understand how it could be my fault...and I'm no closer to it either with your lucid explanation...

I don't know what you did, but Debian Stable has been installed millions of times, and the installer hasn't been changed in two years, and I've never heard any suggestion of anyone else having such a problem, ... ergo, you screwed up.

How? Not a clue. There are way too many possibilities.

It's certainly possible, but "I've never heard of...etc..." is not a reason. I have a reasonably modern video card that has only last month been supported by its own company's driver (Nvidia 9800 GT)...it might not like that, for example. Just because it's unlikely does not mean it's impossible.

Again, I'd invite any suggestions as to any of these "possibilities" I could have done during the installation procedure by going with all the default options. And yeah, it's true I don't know, but neither do you, and your presumptuous tone does not help anything.

Debian users grow thick skins. It's part of the mystique.

Could it be that you had text mode using the framebuffer? Don't ask me how to check that, but since you are not a complete noob you might have seen that expression somehow, somewhere. It's the only thing I can think of. Text mode (assuming no frambuf, no vga=nnn boot parameter) is pretty basic, the only thing which can not display 80x25 is my coffee maker. (And Windows Vista )

Did you see all messages scroll by while booting, until the screen went black for switching to graphic mode?

jlinkels