Re: Shutting down X

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

lameth wrote:

> How do you shut X-windows down and get to the command prompt?
> Depending on the response I get from another post I'm thinking of 
> upgrading the drivers for my video card and I'm sure it wouldn't be a 
> bad idea to turn X off while I do so.

Depends:
   - on the window manager being run
   - on whether a session manager (xdm, gdm, etc) is running

Most window managers have a way to logout; find that to get to either a 
console (full screen white text on black background usually) or to a 
graphical login prompt (the session manager). If you get to a graphical 
login prompt, you need to kill the session manager. Do this by pressing 
Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch to the first virtual terminal (VT - the console 
mentioned above; Ctrl-Alt-F2 switches you to the second VT, and etc). 
Log in if necessary (probably) either as root or as a normal user with 
sudo access, and as root run "/etc/init.d/[xdm or wdm or gdm or kdm] stop".

Now you can upgrade your drivers.

To restart your session manager, as root run "/etc/init.d/[x|w|g|kdm] 
start". You'll probably automatically be switched to the seventh VT 
where the GUI login will probably load; you might want to switch back to 
VT1 and log out of that session, then switch to VT7 to log in as you 
normally would.

All done.

Kent