Re: Installation Obstacle with X
> I'm a little stuck.
> I just installed Debian 2.1 on my old Pentium 166mhz
> machine with 64 megs of RAM.
>
> Installation went fine. I loaded a bunch of stuff off
> the CD. After using Slackware 8 for a while, I didn't
> find the text-based item-by-item so daunting.
>
> I did xf86config to see what kind of x-window setup I
> could get running. This is where the problem begins. I
> saved the xf86config file and ran startx. I got a
> bunch of colorful chopped up squares and rectangles on
> my monitor. I quickly shut off the monitor and
> rebooted.
>
> Problem is, Debian seems to be starting the x window
> system upon boot-up so I'm always getting dumped into
> the screwed video settings.
>
> How do I cut off the x window system and get Debian to
> boot shell/terminal/command line, etc.
>
> If I can just get to the command line, I'm sure I can
> work from there until I figure out the proper
> xf86config settings.
>
> How do I interrupt the boot-up and get to the command
> line before being thrown into graphical mode?
>
> I don't remember choosing to start debian with a
> graphical interface.
>
> Thank you for your help. Thank you for your time.
>
> Mike
>
I assume you installed xdm.
I was going to suggest checking that with dpkg but if I understand you
correctly you have no console. Therefore, I would try alt+ctrl+F1 in order to
get to a console. You might have to do it more then one time after boot since
XDM might be persistent then you are, at least for a while.
Now in order to kill it you should issue, as root,
/etc/init.d/xdm stop
Now am I right when assuming that you have xdm installed? In order to find
that out you can try
[03:24:53 tmp]$ dpkg -l xdm
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii xdm 4.1.0-5 X display manager
[03:31:56 tmp]$
The above output is for the case when it is installed. Actually, the fact that
/etc/init.d/xdm was found on your system is pretty much self evident to it
being installed.
The next thing you might consider is stopping xdm from being run at boot time:
Script started on Mon Sep 17 03:24:42 2001
[03:24:42 tmp]$ zgrep -A27 'How do I stop xdm from starting at boot?'
/usr/share
/doc/xfree86-common/FAQ.gz | tail -29
--
*) How do I stop xdm from starting at boot?
This is a very common question from people who have upgraded from Debian 2.0
or earlier, before the xdm program has since been separated out into its own
package. Exactly how you deal with this depends on exactly what you want.
Note that the following techniques all require root privileges.
+ I don't want xdm to run at all.
In that case, simply remove or purge the xdm package with dpkg. If you
have xbase installed, remove that before or simultaneously; xbase depends
on xdm. See /usr/share/doc/xfree86-common/README.Debian-upgrade for more
information.
+ I don't want xdm to manage any local servers.
Edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers and remove any lines that correspond to the
local host. This file ships with only one entry, for :0. If you
comment that out, xdm will start but will not try to manage any X
servers at all (unless you have added lines to the file).
+ I don't want xdm to manage any remote servers.
Edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers appropriately. Note that as this file
ships, it does not manage any remote servers, so unless you have
already edited this file (or borrowed someone else's), no change is
necessary from the package default to realize this state.
[03:24:51 tmp]$ exit
exit
Script done on Mon Sep 17 03:24:53 2001
Now you can go back to the bad X display by pressing alt+F7. ctrl+alt+F1 will
take you back to the console, and so forth.
My last comment would be about /var/log/xdm.log. The contents of this file
might help you fix your X display.
Hope this helps.
--
Shaul Karl <shaulka@bezeqint.net>
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