exiting gui in cent os

sigint-ninja · 07-13-2012, 07:54 PM

hi guys,

how do you exit the gui in cent os

i read a few linux posts that said it was ctrl + alt f1 to f6...but none of these work...

also is there a safe way of doing this?

sn

nbodewitz · 07-13-2012, 07:56 PM

I do not normally install the GUI on CentOS so I am not sure on how to exit it, You can set the system to boot into the command line only run level instead of the Gui one, or if you have no reason to have a GUI installed reinstall as a minimal installation or server installation.

frankbell · 07-13-2012, 09:10 PM

I am guessing you want to be able to exit the GUI to the command line.

You need to set CentOS to boot to the command line.

This should help:

http://superuser.com/questions/42648...-centos-in-cli

Skip all the stuff about Grub and read the stuff about editing inittab. Then you will boot to the command line, from which you can log in and start the GUI with the command "startx." When you exit the GUI, you will be back at the command line.

You will need to shutdown or reboot by issuing the appropriate command to the command line as root.

sigint-ninja · 07-14-2012, 09:49 AM

is there no keyboard shortcut like red hat to exit the gui? also how would you install a minimal / server installation im pretty sure i had no such options in my installation at start up.

thanks for the reply guys!!!

frankbell · 07-14-2012, 07:42 PM

I do believe CentOS offers a minimal install.

See item 7 on this page: http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/CentOS6

Elv13 · 07-14-2012, 07:52 PM

CentOS is just like other Linux. If ctrl+alt+F[1-6] do not work for you, there is probably something wrong with your keyboard. As said above, you usually don't install GUI on an headless server. Booting into run level 3 is the best option. Run levels are different "step" of the linux boot process and are usually looking like this

Code:

1-Single user mode, only one shell and no notwork. Little to no services are started
2-Base system, only necessary services
3-Networking (all default services) <--Usual server setup
4-Unused, if you need to have some kind of maintenance mode, built it in this unused level
5-GUI
6-Shutdown

You can select which mode to boot on by appending 1,2,3,4 or 5 in the bootloader kernel line. You can also switch at runtime using the rc command or /etc/init.d/xdm stop with super user privileges (su). You can use the "yum" command line tool to remove xorg, this is the name of the gui.

John VV · 07-14-2012, 09:09 PM

the EASIEST is to just use telinit

Code:

su -
telinit 3

it is located in /sbin so hence the "su -"

but for a gui-less install
there is an option at the very start to use text install

sigint-ninja · 07-15-2012, 06:05 AM

thanks for all that...

one last thing...

what is the difference between the full shell...black screen command prompt and the terminal you can run from within the os?
is there a major difference?

thanks for all ye help

sigint-ninja · 07-15-2012, 07:42 AM

"CentOS is just like other Linux. If ctrl+alt+F[1-6] do not work for you, there is probably something wrong with your keyboard."

thanks...it was my keyboard...actually has a f lock needed to trigger f function keys...working fine now thanks
went to the command line but couldnt startx again...error...had to restart my vm...wil look into this

thanks

John VV · 07-15-2012, 01:20 PM

"ctrl+alt+F[1-6] "
dost NOT shutdown or turn off X11
it just opens a tty

to turn OFF X11 you need to set "id:5:initdefault:" to " "id:3:initdefault:" in /etc/inttab ( and reboot)
or
run "telinit 3 " as root
the locating for telinit is NOT in the normal users $PATH
it IS in root's $PATH