Mandrake 91 in the graphical mode I cannot get the system to boot up with the standard gdm login . If I startt at init 3 and then type gdm the login screen I want to use is shown rather than the lame Mandrake face thing. Any ideas as to How I chang that for good ?
Have tried GDM configurator but seems to not stick.
Thanks

i think one way would be to edit the line in the /etc/inittab file
it should look something like:
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/gdm -nodaemon
hope this helps, cheers

I dont seem to have any lines in the file close to the one you listed,

Grayhane you can try this
If you use startx you can enter X windows directly with the present login.
OR use 'init 5' this takes you to a login screen in X.
Hope this helps you

Let me restate whats what, starting from init level 3 ( text mode ) I can type gdm and get one interface for login (gnome ) or using startx get the lame one with the faces on it,

What I want to do is change settings so gdm is the default and the login screen is the one with gnome on it and not the graphic faces

thanks

Edit the inittab as suggested by frieza.
At one place in the inittab, you will see all the init levels from 0 to 6.
change the level 5, as per the suggestion and set the default init level to 5.

but if you're on slackware, set it to 4.

hmm, it should be at the bottom of the inittab file, but then again my distributions are redhat based, so perhaps the inittab file structure are different

In mandrake 9.1 you go to the Mandrake Control Center... click hardware and click on the display manager chooser (Looks like traffic lights) it will let you choose your DM (just click GDM and when you reboot, that's the one that will pop up)

Thank you all !!!!!!!
I now know how to do it both in the GUI and via the file.

And to tcaptain, thanks for showing me how lame I can be at times, I must have looked at that stop lite a dozen times along the way.

My intention was not to show you that you are lame You aren't lame, you just missed an option...trust me, I didn't know either until I read a post about switching dm in Mandrake.

And since I've been having problems with KDM, that knowledge came in handy

I have the same annoying problem using Redhat 9.
/etc/inittab
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

this line led me to the /etc/X11/prefdm

/etc/X11/prefdm
preferred=
if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/desktop ]; then
. /etc/sysconfig/desktop
if [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = GNOME ]; then
preferred=gdm
elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = KDE ]; then
preferred=kdm
elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = XDM ]; then
preferred=xdm

so now i'm looking at /etc/sysconfig/desktop

/etc/sysconfig/desktop
DESKTOP="KDE"

finally...i like linux, but there has to be an easier way (maybe that's the newbie talking)

probably the newbie talking, but hey, it's just like learning anything. it's hard at first, but 'easy' is relitive, once you become good at linux it will seem easy, and you'll be wondering how you got tripped up on this little snag in the first place, and looking at thins you call a 'little snag' that would have seemed like a brick wall now besides, you don't have to do it entirely alone, there's always this bullitan