Hi all,
This article shows you how to switch between Graphical and Text based Login Screens that are made available to you when you boot into either Redhat or Fedora Core Systems. This will work for Redhat 9.x and both Fedora Core 2 & 3.

I've two servers in my office - one of Fedora Core 2 and one on Redhat Enterprise Linux AS 3. I'd set the Redhat Server to boot into text login but missed out that option in Fedora. As a result it always started off in a X-Windows based login - which was pretty inconvenient. Linux users will know for sure how a GUI can impede your work flow specially on a Linux system which involves editing & modifying millions of config files to get all the services running according to your needs. Naturally, I started feeling very stifled as the FC Server was meant to be my primary internal LAN server and I was always playing around with the settings to get more out of it. So I had to finally give up on being lazy and went ahead and did the little tweak that changed it back to text login...Here's how...

First and foremost you should be logged in as root.

The /etc folder on these Linux installations contain a file named inittab - mind you no extensions to the filename. This file contains lots of important parameters & runlevel configurations that the kernel reads while booting and configures the system accordingly. Open this file in your favourite editor and scroll down just a little bit say, till the 18th-20th line (usually) till you find something similar to this:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
# 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
# 1 - Single user mode
# 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
# 3 - Full multiuser mode
# 4 - unused
# 5 - X11
# 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
#
id:5:initdefault:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

As you can see the last line id:5:initdefault: specifies WHAT MODE (Graphical/Text/MultiUser etc) to boot the system into. The number "5" here, according to the Commented out options above tells the system to boot straight into X11 (X-Windows) i.e. the Graphical Mode.

Change this value to "3" - which according to the options - is Full multiuser mode - involving all the networking features of Linux, but in a non-graphical environment.

That's it. We are done. Save the file and quit. Reboot your system for the setting to take effect.

WARNING: When you are editing these critical system files in Linux, be absolutely sure of WHAT you are editing. One SINGLE MISTAKE can render the whole system non-bootable. These are as dangerous as (if not more) Windows Registry. So there....

All the best

cool...

plus, to switch runmode without a re-boot you can run

Hey thanks for the runlevel tip. I didn't know that one..

Hello,
I tried and did not work,still booting with X(I am running Red hat 5)
Any suggestions.Thanks ..Homa

-reply by Homa

Hi!

Have you tried the post at the top? It should work out for you.

Or maybe you can try to press <Ctrl><Alt><F1> to get a console login (up to <F6>).

<Ctrl><Alt><F7> to get back to X Window.

I just use init 3 or init 5 without rebooting , or do you mean without terminating the X-session ? (btw, I only switch to runlevel 3 if X is acting up and I need to kill it ,

And, of course, this is mainly useful for people wanting to stop the X-Windows graphical display because they have a small system, with slow cpu or few memory.
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