boot to console only?
 

On Tuesday 11 January 2011 23:40:55 Mark Knecht wrote:

> I found the nox keyword searching in Google but couldn't figure out how
> to use it correctly. It does exactly what I was looking for.

I define a separate run-level for no-x*, which doesn't contain xdm and
also omits various other things that are only needed when running an X
session (lm_sensors, vboxdrv, alsasound, ...). Then I put a separate
entry into grub.conf for it and select it at boot time.

It doesn't get used very often, but when I need it nothing else will do.
Very handy for, e.g., major upgrades of KDE, when I'd rather not carry
on running old-KDE and risk starting a program thoughtlessly that might
be either old-KDE or new-KDE.

Single-user mode won't do for this because I want the range of VTs to be
available to do work in.

* like this:
# mkdir /etc/runlevels/no-x
# rc-update add <package> no-x

--
Rgds
Peter. Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23.

boot to console only?
 

On 01/12/2011 01:40 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:

[...]
The problem was I built a VM that started X but only had KDE in the VM
and no user accounts yet. KDE starts and runs in the VM but KDE
wouldn't allow a root login so there wasn't a way for me to get a user
account added without stopping at the login like this.


Uhm, CTRL+Alt+F1 will switch you to the first console so you can login
as root. If you're on VMWare, that shortcut becomes CTRL+Alt+Space,
release them, then press F1.

boot to console only?
 

Mark Knecht wrote:

> What (if any) is a way to boot a Gentoo VM as far as the console,
> not starting X, to allow a root login? Possibly some sort of
> interactive boot where I can tell it to continue or not?

With rc_interactive="YES" in /etc/rc.conf (with baselayout2, I'm not
sure how that was enabled with baselayout1) you can press the 'I' key
during boot to enable interactive mode. You are asked then for every
init script if it should start or not.

But if you only want to avoid X, the other solutions that were posted
are better. And switching to a text console probably is the easiest.

Wonko

boot to console only?
 

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> On 01/12/2011 01:40 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>> The problem was I built a VM that started X but only had KDE in the VM
>> and no user accounts yet. KDE starts and runs in the VM but KDE
>> wouldn't allow a root login so there wasn't a way for me to get a user
>> account added without stopping at the login like this.
>
> Uhm, CTRL+Alt+F1 will switch you to the first console so you can login as
> root. *If you're on VMWare, that shortcut becomes CTRL+Alt+Space, release
> them, then press F1.

That's what I do on a physical Gentoo box and it works fine. (Either
Alt-Ctrl-F1 or Alt-F1)

This VM, running in Virtualbox-4.0.0 on Win 7 didn't work. A more or
less identical Gentoo VM running on a Gentoo server (yes, Gentoo
within Gentoo) didn't switch to the VM's console but switched to the
server's console. Assuming I was actually capturing keyboard strokes
by the VM that doesn't make sense to me but possible things like Alt &
Alt-Ctrl sequences are handled differently by Linux. Dunno..

Anyway, the gentoo=nox solution worked great for my needs.

Thanks,
Mark

boot to console only?
 

On 01/12/2011 05:12 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de> wrote:

On 01/12/2011 01:40 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:


[...]
The problem was I built a VM that started X but only had KDE in the VM
and no user accounts yet. KDE starts and runs in the VM but KDE
wouldn't allow a root login so there wasn't a way for me to get a user
account added without stopping at the login like this.


Uhm, CTRL+Alt+F1 will switch you to the first console so you can login as
root. If you're on VMWare, that shortcut becomes CTRL+Alt+Space, release
them, then press F1.


That's what I do on a physical Gentoo box and it works fine. (Either
Alt-Ctrl-F1 or Alt-F1)


Ctrl is needed when in X11. When in a console, only Alt is needed.



This VM, running in Virtualbox-4.0.0 on Win 7 didn't work. A more or
less identical Gentoo VM running on a Gentoo server (yes, Gentoo
within Gentoo) didn't switch to the VM's console but switched to the
server's console. Assuming I was actually capturing keyboard strokes
by the VM that doesn't make sense to me but possible things like Alt&
Alt-Ctrl sequences are handled differently by Linux. Dunno..

Anyway, the gentoo=nox solution worked great for my needs.


It's always good to be able to switch to the consoles without needing a
reboot. Since you're on VirtualBox, maybe this helps:


http://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox#Switchingconsoles

boot to console only?
 

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:40 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
<SNIP>
>> This VM, running in Virtualbox-4.0.0 on Win 7 didn't work. A more or
>> less identical Gentoo VM running on a Gentoo server (yes, Gentoo
>> within Gentoo) didn't switch to the VM's console but switched to the
>> server's console. Assuming I was actually capturing keyboard strokes
>> by the VM that doesn't make sense to me but possible things like Alt&
>> Alt-Ctrl sequences are handled differently by Linux. Dunno..
>>
>> Anyway, the gentoo=nox solution worked great for my needs.
>
> It's always good to be able to switch to the consoles without needing a
> reboot. *Since you're on VirtualBox, maybe this helps:
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox#Switchingconsoles

That works great. Thanks!

Default setup is <Right-Ctrl>-F1 to get to the console as Right-Ctrl
is the VB default host key. I was always using Left-Ctrl yesterday.

Again, thanks!

- Mark