how to disable x at boot?
 

i realize this is a really dumb question and i know i should know how to do this, but i don't...

i just installed FC6 as a secondary on my XP machine, and i got it all going fine. XP boots perfectly (after a little grub tweaking via knoppix livecd) and everything is gravy. however, when i try to boot into fedora i get a black screen and my monitor starts yelling at me saying i'm not in optimal mode or somesuch.

i have no idea what is causing the problem and i'm assuming disabling X is my first step. luckily i have another machine (this one) next to it so i can copy over what i'm looking at. when i hit ctrl+alt+f1 i get this...

what i don't get is, this happens before i even get to a login screen. when i boot i see the typical "starting udev.....[ok]" then it just flips to a black screen.

this is a fresh install, i haven't changed/updated anything, and i've used this same cd with success before. i'm gonna sit in the corner and scratch my head, any help would be much appreciated since i don't even know how to go about searching for this problem

So you login as root, look at /etc/inittab and replace id:5:initdefault with id:3:initdefault. This is called changing default initlevel, init 3 is called text mode with networking. Not that traditional definitons are always strictly observed, bu generally 5 is X and 3 is complete text console.

okay so i switched the inittab via livecd, and now i can actually see what i'm doing, but of course i go back to my original problem when i try to startx. what do i need to edit now to keep the GUI login screen from hanging? as i switch back to runlevel 1 i see "Xlib:unexpected async reply" and also "(EE)AIGLX: screen 0 is not DRI capable" so i'm guessing i need to change DRI to 0 in some config...but where?

also, ty for the help so far

/etc/X11/xorg.conf and /var/log/X.0.log are welcome. Mounting a USB flash should help you for transmitting files.

You can also use "virtual consoles" to troubleshoot...
 

Hi -

It's worth noting that the main window you're accustomed to logging into isn't the only logon that's available to you. Most versions of Linux have "virtual consoles". Just type "Alt-F1" on your keyboard and ... voila! .. you have another logon. "Alt-F2" for another. And so on.

In other words, you can log in to multiple different times to the same system and the same time *without* needing X, "telnet" or anything else.

You really don't want to disable X. But "virtual consoles" might be an easy way to debug.

'Hope that helps .. PSM

PS:
Here's a really great tutorial that might also help:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...97&postcount=1

that post honestly just reminded me about my USB drive, and its a good idea and all, but how do i mount it?? i have a pair of SATA drives, so i can't just mount the normal /dev/sda1. i honestly don't even know how to go about finding what it's called. i mean i looked through dmesg and i can't find anything...man this is such a headache and i really don't get why this install didn't work in the first place, this is just the beginning of my problems, bleh

Are uhci_hcd and usb_storage 'modprobe'd ? After a pair of SATA drives USB will be sdc1, I guess.

alright well i couldn't ever get the usb drive mounted but i found a link on my other machine to some updated drivers and just got them with wget. that and libstdc++ was all i needed.

thanks for all the help guys, sorry for bein such a noob.

Nice to hear that the problem was solved.. Really, not being able to find out a problem with drivers immediately is not always a trait of newbie. More so if you managed to fix it yourself. By the way, I hope USB disk also works?

yeah, the USB works fine inside a GUI, and in any other machine but this one outside the GUI, but that's the least of my problems at this point...at least you reminded me i had it! cheers