Linux Format forums

[DavidMcCrossan]

My friend is just getting to grips with linux and has loaded a distro onto his laptop, as a clean install.

He is faced with a blank screen and wishes to edit xconfig. I remember from the distant past it was possible to hold down (I think) Alt+F something which caused the distro to go to runlevel 3, and a command line.

Can anyone please let me know the sequence to get to this?

Many thanx

David

[MartyBartfast]

<alt><ctrl>F2 (or F3/4/5 etc) will open up a console terminal, one of those will be the X display on mine it's F1, sometimes it can be F10. Basically hit them in sequence until you get the login prompt and you can log into one of the tty consoles.

Edit: to be clear, this doesn't alter the run level, but it brings up a character console which looks like run level 3, which is what I thought you were looking for.
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I have been touched by his noodly appendage.

[lok1950]

And the command to get back to run level 5 (desktop) is

[nelz]

Those are distro dependent. Not all distros use the runlevels in the same way, some don't even have a different runlevel for a no-X boot.

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill X, or you can switch to a console and run

[lok1950]

And lots of current distros use policy-kit to make so that when you do use Ctrl-Alt-Backspace all that happens is that you log out and restart the X server at the the GDM log-in screen.I know that's what happens with fedora 16 and has since f10.

Enjoy the Choice

[nelz]

That's done without PolicyKit too, which is why it is best to stop the DM.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

[DavidMcCrossan]

Thanx guys for all your help.
My friend is a newbie convert from Windoze, and is a pc repairman out here.
He will easily cope with this.
Best

David