dsl nogui

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: dsl nogui
started by: mikshaw

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 08 2005,06:36

Maybe the option exists, but I don't see it. 'dsl 2' boots into text mode, but as root. Is it possible to avoid all the X-related actions....creating .xinitrc, startx in .bash_profile and all that...while still logging into the dsl account? Even when doing 'dsl 2' it seems like startx is added to /home/dsl/.bash_profile, which I think is kinda rude. Personally i don't like being forced into a graphical environment, particularly when I specifically chose to boot into text.

Just an idea....I can deal with it either way.

Posted by codestorm on Jan. 08 2005,13:23

I just press Ctrl-C after logging in, when the white text appears.

I assume it simply breaks out of the login batch script.

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 08 2005,16:14

cool! I'll try that, thanks.
Although "breaks out of the login batch script" doesn't sound good to me. .bash_profile is a very useful file. I'm thinking I might make a basic backup.tar.gz just for .bash_profile and .xinitrc for those times when I want a vanilla DSL but don't want startx in my face.

Posted by ke4nt1 on Jan. 08 2005,17:58

I haven't tried this, but ..

Couldn't you make a backup.tar.gz which contained an edited /etc/inittab file in it
that has the runlevel set to 3 , instead of 5 ?

Then , at boottime, use the command restore=hdXx
( hdXx = partition containing your alternate backup.tar.gz )

Normally, this would boot you to a shell prompt.
Again, I have not attempted this myself..
I used to dislike Redhat loading into X automatically, especially
if you had a bad file or did some incorrect editing for X ( NVidia-XF86-etc.. )

This was my workaround..

After further browsing on this topic, roberts suggests differently.
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=1511 >

73
ke4nt

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 08 2005,21:07

In DSL runlevel 5 is text mode, as far as I know. The difference here is that user dsl is automatically logged in, and then since the startx line is in .bash_profile you get automatically sent into X. I assume this was done as a way to mimic the xdm behavior without the additional software. You might notice this difference between DSL and systems using a graphical session manager such as xdm....when you exit Fluxbox in DSL you're sent to tty, but with xdm you remain in X with a graphical login screen (i HATE that).

As I said, making a backup of .bash_profile with no startx command will prevent X from loading automatically, but I was just hoping I wouldn't need to shuffle around too many backup.tar.gz files...I already have 4 different ones with varying degrees of graphic configurations and that's rather annoying to begin with.

What about the possibility of specifying a tar.gz backup file at boot time? This way you could have as many different backup files as you want in the same partition without having to move them around every time you want to boot with a different configuration. One possibility is using multiple directories containing various backups. This way you could say 'dsl restore=hda4:<dirname>' or something like that. The 'optional' directory would hopefully still be read the same way(or maybe it could be symlinked), but backup.tar.gz and any auto-loaded extensions would be found in that directory. Or the autoloaded extensions could be kept in optional and loaded via bootlocal.
In this way you could also keep multiple backups on a single CD. Take it with you to another machine and test it...whoops...this machine can use Xfree86, but not nvidia, so I just reboot the same CD using a different configuration....no manual copying of files and loading of extensions.

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 09 2005,06:30

After a little more exploration, it has come to my attention that the runlevels in DSL are not utilized to their full potential. I have no experience with Debian systems outside of DSL, so maybe this is standard....but it seems like the runlevels could be more useful.

runlevels 0 and 6 make complete sense, as they are shutdown and reboot.
runlevel 5 (default) allows for the most flexible system as far as having a grapical/mouse system is concerned, but it provides only one tty, which seems to be frozen with root ownership (my screen extension has been a pain as a result).
runlevel 2 makes sense as a single-user root system.
runlevels 3 and 4 are identical, with one service more than is run in 2. The additional ttys, however, are automatically logged in as root. I suppose this is because they are created using bash instead of a getty application...I'm not too clear about how that works.

I think it would be very useful to change either 3 or 4 in a way that provides an additional tty for dsl instead of root....or maybe add tty2 to runlevel 5. Can bash be launched for dsl instead of root? I tried a few things to get tty2 into runlevel 5 but it either didn't work or it automatically logged in as root.

If you are at a tty as root, and then 'su dsl', is that the same as logging into any other shell as dsl? Does it present any more of a security risk than dsl's tty1 in runlevel 5?

Conclusion: There doesn't seem to be much of a text-only system available without the initial root power...that doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Going into runlevel 5 and then shutting down X works, but a console system really should have multiple terminals available.