How to boot without X Windows?

[Jeff Vian]

Elvio Caruana wrote:

>Charles,
>
>When X starts and fails, press CRTL+ALT+F1 to go to console mode.
>Log in as root, then edit /etc/inittab with your favourite editor.
>
>Find the line 
>
>id:5:initdefault:
>
>and change it to
>
>id:3:initdefault:
>
>
>and reboot.
>
>
>You probably didn't know that you can go to a console by CTL+ALT+F[1-6] 
>.. and that will solve you many problems.
>
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*He said he can't boot.  Thus he can't edit inittab*

The easiest way is at the fedora splash menu press "a"

then add "  3  " to the end of the line and boot to run level 3.

Now you can do what is needed to get X to run, simply use "startx" to 
test it and "ctr-alt-bksp" to kill the server for the test.
Once it is running properly just reboot back to the graphics mode.

The suggestion above, by editing /etc/inittab will make it so you can 
boot to text mode all the time, until you change it back.

>
>On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 06:11, Charles Landau wrote:
>  
>
>>I'm trying to install Fedora Core 1 on an off-brand PC. (It's a 
>>"Great Quality PC" from Fry's Electronics.) Apparently the 
>>installation process mis-identifies my video hardware, because as 
>>soon as it tries to start X Windows, the screen goes blank (or, if I 
>>connect a more intelligent monitor, it says "Input signal out of 
>>range").
>>
>>By the way, the video hardware is on the motherboard, which is an 
>>Elitegroup L7VMM3. The documentation provided is sketchy, but the 
>>computer came with Lindows 4.5 installed; it was using a "savage" 
>>video driver for X Windows and works fine.
>>
>>I'm thinking that if I could boot Fedora without having it start X 
>>Windows, I could run enough to explore the X configuration and 
>>experiment with changing it to try to get it to work with my 
>>hardware. I'm hoping there's a generic video driver that will work 
>>OK. (I don't care about the video hardware's fancy 2D and 3D 
>>graphics.) So how do I keep X Windows from starting? I can *install* 
>>in text mode, but I don't know how to stay in text mode when booting.
>>    
>>
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