Booting Linux to Command line in Fedora Core 1 1

[Dimonet]

I am fairly new to Linux and poking my way around configuring files etc. I have been very sucessful so far in writing basic scripts and navigation at the shell prompt. I recently installed Fedora Core 1 and it has been running very nice. I installed the GUI (KDE) while I was learning, which always loads at startup. I would now like the GUI not to load on boot. Rather I would like the server to always boot to the shell login and invoke the GUI only when I need it as a shortcut. As I pick more and more things up I find working in the shell much more efficient and rewarding. My question is this:

1) What file do I need to edit to prevent the GUI from launching on boot and what is the sytax I would need to add or remove from the file to make that happen.

2) Where and how do I specify the default shell for each user login

2) Should I wish to invoke the GUI down the line I would simply type startkde from the shell prompt? Or is there something else I would need to do in combinatiom with that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
DImo

 

[Gloups]

Here commes some answers


1) You just need to boot in level 3 (level 5 is the same with only the graphical interface started)

To do that, edit /etc/inittab and change the folowing line on the top of the file:

id:5:initdefault: change "5" by "3"


2) To specify a login shell for each user, you have to modify /etc/passwd, the last parameter on each user line is the login shell


3) to start The window manager from a command line, type startx or /usr/X11R6/bin/startx


Good luck

 

[ianicr]

Another answer to your second question is usermod. eg.

usermod -s <yourshell> username

usermod -s /bin/bash ian

I think its a nicer way to do it rather than screwing with the /etc/passwd file...
Thanks

 

[mrmac228]

I think you can set the default shell by using 'useradd -D -s /bin/bash'.

This will default the shell to bash for all users created after the command. You can find the current default setting using the 'useradd -D' command



I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by - Douglas Adams

 

[Dimonet]

All of those suggestions worked great. I have a new problem though. The box now boots to the shell but my ssh service no longer starts on boot. It always started when it booted to the GUI. Is there another file I need to edit to make sure SSH is starting? Again any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dimo

 

[zeland]

Most likely the SSH daemon is not started in runlevel 3. Do a &quot;chkconfig --list&quot; without the quotes to check what services run at what runlevel. You should see something like:

...
nscd 0ff 1ff 2ff 3ff 4ff 5ff 6ff
sshd 0ff 1ff 2ff 3ff 4ff 5ff 6ff
portmap 0ff 1ff 2ff 3n 4n 5n 6ff
...

This shows the service name and its status at a particular runlevel. In my case, the sshd is off for all runlevels (0 to 6). To enable it in both text (runlevel 3) and GUI (runlevel 5) mode do &quot;chkconfig --level 345 sshd on&quot; without the quotes.