Turning off the X-Server?

[Teh]

I need to know how to turn off the X Server so I can install a driver for my video card (installation will not go through when X Server is on). I understand that the X Server is the "basic layer upon which the various GUIs like KDE are built & manages the basic mouse and keyboard input and provides elementary graphic routines to draw rectangles and other primitives." I tried to find documentation on how to turn it off, but have came up with nothing so far. Anyones help would be greatly appreciated...

 

[mirko_3]

you don't 'turn it off' - either it's running, and with it a window manager like kde, or it's not running; and the drivers can be installed while it's running, you just restart it after your done (that is, logout from youre window manager)

 

[injinj]

Switch to runlevel 3...
# telinit 3

 

[Teh]

you don't 'turn it off' - either it's running, and with it a window manager like kde, or it's not running; and the drivers can be installed while it's running, you just restart it after your done (that is, logout from youre window manager)

Well, when I logged out.. it would go to a login screen, with either change user.. restart or shutdown. And no, the driver would not let me install while the X Server was "on". It explicitly stated it had to be turned off, and the installation would not continue. The problem was I had it automatically start the X server when I installed Mandrake, so, since I didn't have anything to lose, I just reformatted and changed it to not automatically startup with X Server...

 

[fireball****aka fireball_87]

open a console and type "telinit3" like injinj said, or as a last resort, delete the /etc/X11/XFree86config file and reboot the system

note: untill you reconfigure x it wont work if you do that last step i suggested, this can be acomplished by running the command X -configure if i remember correctly

 

[Christoph]

Renaming /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 would be an easier option than deleting it, although telinit 2 should do the trick. The different runlevels (which is what telinit switches between) vary between distros. You can find out what yours are like by looking at /etc/inittab and /etc/rdX.d/* (where X is between 1 and 6) to find out what all is started during runlevel X.

 

[fireball****aka fireball_87]

Renaming /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 would be an easier option than deleting it, although telinit 2 should do the trick. The different runlevels (which is what telinit switches between) vary between distros. You can find out what yours are like by looking at /etc/inittab and /etc/rdX.d/* (where X is between 1 and 6) to find out what all is started during runlevel X.

i suppose it would be easer to rename it, but if hes instaling new vid card drivers, he will probly have to reconfigure x anyway, so theres not much reason to keep it around.

just thought id explain my reasoning

 

[Christoph]

i suppose it would be easer to rename it, but if hes instaling new vid card drivers, he will probly have to reconfigure x anyway, so theres not much reason to keep it around.

just thought id explain my reasoning

I see. if he's installing an nVidia card, he'll only have to make a couple of small changes. IDK about other drivers, though.

 

[rogerdugans]

Configuration stuff can change with some distros....RedHat and Fedora among them.

One of my complaints is that I like to boot to the console and startx myself- Fedora doesn't even give you that as an option!!!!

But there is a fix!

Go into the /etc/inittab file and find the line that says
id:5:initdefault:
and edit it to be
id:3:initdefault:

3 makes the os boot to the console, 5 goes straight into the gui.

 

[SickBoy]

I didn´t install the login manager on my Gentoo box and itś kinda nice. I get booted to a text console and start X windows myself. Makes it really easy to get to the command line for situations like this.

 

[Arkaine23]

Best way to operate IMO. If you ever have trouble with the Xserver for any reason, you've got a default boot to text mode anyway.

how hard is it really to adjust a ~/.xinitrc file to choose your GUI? How hard to run a simple command like startx in order to start a graphical session?