Chris Lale <ctlale@netscape.net> [2002-11-09 11:34:52 +0000]: > I installed Woody 3.0 from official CDs and it gave me a graphical login > (gdm). I prefer it to the command line login, but it means that > configuration requiring restarting X presents problems. Often, a reboot > is the only sure way. I am a little confused. You only want to have a text based login? Correct? You do not want any of xdm, gdm, or kdm to run? (I run many systems that way. I just want to be sure I understand.) Edit /etc/X11/default-display-manager and change gdm to false. echo /usr/bin/false > /etc/X11/default-display-manager This will prevent any of the graphical login managers from starting at boot time and you will be presented with the normal text login. Since default-display-manager is a conffile the configuration will be preserved across updates. > Well, I can use <ctrl><alt><F1> to run a different terminal session, > login and start a new instance of X with 'startx -- :1'. There are some > problems here: Without a login manager running at all there is no need to pass options. Just run 'xinit', or 'startx' if you prefer, and let it choose the default screen. > 1. X run the KDE desktop (not Gnome). This is not really a problem, but > it is annoying. Gnome has a lower priority set for x-session-manager than KDE does and so when both are installed you get KDE. I believe the KDE priority is set to 40 while gnome priority is set to 20 and therefore KDE overrides Gnome. You could uninstall KDE. I posted an explaination of the Debian 'alternatives' system in a note a while ago so I won't repeat it here. Please ignore the editor rhetoric as I was just having fun with that. But the alternatives explaination would probably help you understand why startx is selecting KDE instead of Gnome. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2002/debian-user-200208/msg02808.html update-alternatives --display x-session-manager x-session-manager - status is auto. link currently points to /usr/bin/kde2 /usr/bin/gnome-session - priority 20 slave x-session-manager.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/gnome-session.1.gz /usr/bin/kde2 - priority 40 Current `best' version is /usr/bin/kde2. Then run either remove kde from the system and let the alternative naturally fall back to gnome. Or manually run update-alternives to override the default and configure gnome as the session manager. update-alternatives --configure x-session-manager As I said I am not a Gnome user and I have only let the packages auto select the alternatives needed. Read this as saying you might need to find any additional configuration also needed. Bob
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