Uh Oh, need Debian Installation help?

[Floog]

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.

Thanks for your help. Thank you for your time.

Mike

[OliverW]

Do a cat /etc/inittab | grep initdefault to see what your current default runlevel is.

Probably it will be something like 4 or 5 now.

Startup linux in single user mode (type linux -s at the lilo prompt at start up)
then open /etc/inittab with your favorite texteditor (vim, vi, emacs, whatever) and set the initdefault to 2.

It will now start up in textmode only.

[Strike]

OliverW, no that's not how Debian does things. Debian allows YOU to customize all your runlevels, and hence doesn't touch runlevels 2-5, leaving them all the same.

You either need to uninstall xdm/kdm/gdm or remove it from the init scripts in /etc/init.d (or whatever runlevel, in /etc/rcX.d)

[Floog]

How do I do what you suggested below? As soon as the boot process is completed, the screen becomes un-readable with all the xwindow mess. What can I
do to get to the init scripts or interrupt graphical stuff before it starts?

I appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Mike
______________________________________
OliverW, no that's not how Debian does things. Debian
allows YOU to customize all your runlevels, and hence
doesn't touch runlevels 2-5, leaving them all the
same.

You either need to uninstall xdm/kdm/gdm or remove it
from the init scripts in /etc/init.d (or whatever
runlevel, in /etc/rcX.d)

[Craig McPherson]

Boot into single-user mode, and disable the display manager. Some dispaly managers run from /etc/inittab, while others (somewhat goofily) run from init scripts. Or, there's the easiest way of all to get rid of the display manager: uninstall it. Chances are, you have either XDM or GDM or KDM installed, so just remove them with apt-get and you don't have to worry about stopping them from starting up.