Starting lightdm in text mode

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Huh...I genuinely didn't know startx did that. I was always under the impression that you needed a display manager to do that.

Good to know.

For startx, you just need a .xinitrc with this in it, at least this is how I do it

exec orca &

exec mate-session

Those of you more knowledgable about .xinitrc than me...did I miss anything insanely obvious out? I just usually use a template file I got somewhere to switch out desktops however

Also, if you log in from the default TTY1, it'd be ctrl+alt f1 to view the desktop and then ctrl+alt f2-f6 to get to various TTY and then ctrl+alt+f1 to get back to the desktop as well.

On Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 11:19:16AM +0100, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
> I fail to see how not having lightdm installed cane prevent you to start Mate.
> 
> Here (Slint, not Debian), after having selected Mate as desktop with the
> session-chooser command, just typing startx starts Mate.
> 
> Then from Mate just pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 through Ctrl+Alt+F6 make you switch one
> of the consoles (tty2 through tty6), keeping Braille in all environments.
> 
> You can also switch back to Mate pressing Alt+F7 and also switch to froma a
> console to another one (number n) pressing Alt+Fn.
> 
> Anyway you could post in the debian-accessibilty mailing list to get help on
> Debian specific issues.
> 
> Cheers,
> Didier
> --
> Didier Spaier
> Slint maintainer
> 
> Le 08/03/2022 à 12:31, Linux for blind general discussion a écrit :
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I use Debian in command mode. Until about a year ago, when I booted  up, lightdm would start in text mode and ask for user and password. It would then start Mate with Orca. I could use the GUI by pressing Alt+F7. Then it suddenly started setting the screen to not-text mode. 
> > To be able to use the machine in my  primary uses I had to disable lightdm. This meant that I couldn't use Mate. I just switched to Windows for a GUI. How can I configure lightdm to not put the screen in grap;hics mode and to again ask for username and password in text mode where brltty can handle them. Then start the GUI in tty7.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John
> > 
> 
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