I'm somewhat new to linux. I know a bit about the terminal and how linux works. I'm wondering if there is a way to boot into the terminal and log into my account from there. I like the GUI in fedora 16, but I feel much more interested in Linux when I'm required to do more technical things than when it's handed to me on a silver platter.

I want to turn my computer on.
See the terminal
Login with a command (su austin??)
Start the GUI at when I want to (startx?? I know this from BackTrack)
And then continue normally using my computer.

Is this possible? Thanks in advance.

use combination of keys at login screen to switch to console mode

usally in fedora, centos, redhat have "CTRL+ALT+F6" are keys which is used to swtich into console mode, "CTRL"ALT+F7" for move back to GUI.

further go directory into console mode, you need to edit /etc/inittab file

Run the following command to edit the /etc/inittab file:

Press the I key to enter insert mode.
Find the line that includes the text initdefault. Change the numeral 5 to 3.
Type :wq and press the Enter key to save the file and exit the vi text editor.

and than a reboot.

this was started process upto rhel5, fedora older versions and centos5, but from fedora16, CENTOS6, rhel6. they have changed init process with upstart that is module approach to boot the system.

so /etc/inittab file is deprecated, and is now used only for setting up the default runlevel via the initdefault line. Other configuration is done via upstart jobs in the /etc/init directory.


so if you read other documents on internet make sure those are not old.

Or when you boot , edit the kernel parameters adding a space then 3 to the end.
If you want to make it permanent, edit grub.conf the same way.

Or edit /etc/inittab and change the default runlevel to 3.

This does not work out-of-the-box with Debian flavored distros, in which runlevels 3-5 are all treated like runlevel 5 (that is, booting into a graphical display manager).

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.
As stated Fedora 16 uses upstart so changing inittab will not work. linux distributions are slightly different so here you go.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/System...he_runlevel.3F

FYI runlevel 3 is console mode and 5 is GUI

Not too sure about Fedora as it's been a long time since I used this distro but, you could try uninstalling the Gnome Display Manager (gdm3) package and create a .xinitrc file in your home directory. The following should be inserted into the .xinitrc file,

Restart machine and you hopefully will get a console login appear, login and do a startx.

I would try it on a test box or VM first so you don't hose your system.