What's this plasma thing?

[JudicatorMX]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

I've heard something about "startx" command, which loads GUI.
But when I was talking about runing Linux without a GUI, I meant that even login screen shouldn't appear. You just turn on your pc, choose linux from boot menu (grub) and all that loads is a console. Black screen with letters and nothing else. And you have to login and work there, in the console, until you use "startx" or smth.
I've tried choosing the terminal from login screen's session chooser, but that's not the same... It's still a GUI.

[13thSlayer]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

There's no way then.

[JudicatorMX]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

There's no way then.

So maybe there's some kind of linux for download with no gui?

[ukchucktown]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

That's not necessary. Disable the kdm service on startup and you should boot to a terminal screen with no GUI. The startx command is availabe in Kubuntu in the /usr/bin directory. If you want to drop to a terminal from the GUI, open a terminal and type "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop" and you will drop to a terminal with no GUI.

[JudicatorMX]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

That's not necessary. Disable the kdm service on startup and you should boot to a terminal screen with no GUI. The startx command is availabe in Kubuntu in the /usr/bin directory. If you want to drop to a terminal from the GUI, open a terminal and type "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop" and you will drop to a terminal with no GUI.

I've tried stopping kdm (gdm in my case) and it did close the X and I did receive a black screen. But it didn't let me enter commands, it was not a terminal. I could write there, that's for sure... But it didn't do anything. Just a black screen with no functions... Except for useless writing. Maybe I did something wrong? The same happened when I used

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

And how do I disable kdm (gdm) service on startup?

[mfburgo]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

update-rc.d -f gdm remove

[ukchucktown]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

As to your other problem, it's called a Virtual Terminal. Once you kill kdm, press ctrl-alt-<f1 through f6> to access them. If you hit ctrl-alt-f7 you will return to your KDM session, GDM session, or a black screen if you killed it.

[JudicatorMX]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

Ok, everything works fine now. A couple more questions though.
What's the opposite to "update-rc.d -f gdm remove"? If I want to add gdm back?
And another one. I have also got windows on my pc, so linux shows it's like a "38.0 GB Media". The problem is that it cannot be mounted and I don't know why. It just doesn't do anything, I cannot open it. The same is with USB Flash drives. System shows my inserted USB Flash drive, but it's not opening. Any thoughts on this issue? Maybe I've deleted something?

[ukchucktown]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

There is no opposite to "update-rc.d -f gdm remove" and for that reason I recommend you don't use it. The correct way to stop a service is change the service's link name to start with a K instead of S. For example, navigate to the /etc/rc2.d directory in a terminal, the default run level directory. There are run levels 0 through 6, each with an rc<#>.d directory under /etc. For KDM locate the symbolic link (it links back to /etc /init.d/kdm). The link name should be S30kdm. Change the name to K30kdm and the service is disabled for run level 2 only. To disable for other run levels follow the same procedure.

As for the Windows partition, it's not auto mounted. Open Dolphin, can you access the Windows partition from there? From a terminal you will need to mount the drive yourself. Open a terminal and type "man mount" and read the help documentation for the command.

Cheers, UK

[JudicatorMX]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

There is no opposite to "update-rc.d -f gdm remove" and for that reason I recommend you don't use it.

Well, it's too late, I've been already using it. But now after you said that this action can't be undone, I checked somewhere (don't remember now... man pages, maybe) and found the command that does reverse the action and it works. At least now I've booted Linux with GUI. And the command looks like this.

sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults

gmd or kdm, choose whatever you like.
But there's one thing I don't like though. For example, I've started Linux, loaded a GUI with a "startx" and after working some time decided to close the GUI and return to console with "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop". Well, it didn't stop. The output came saying that it's stopping, but nothing happened.

The link name should be S30kdm

There's nothing starting with S30 in this folder. S25 and then goes S50. While performing "sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove" the output was showing this:

Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/gdm ...
  /etc/rc0.d/K20gdm
  /etc/rc1.d/K20gdm
  /etc/rc2.d/S20gdm
  /etc/rc3.d/S20gdm
  /etc/rc4.d/S20gdm
  /etc/rc5.d/S20gdm
  /etc/rc6.d/K20gdm

So maybe that's S20, not S30? Atleast renaming S20 to K20 works.
As for partitions and USB sticks... Now everything magically started working And I didn't do anything.... Maybe that has to do something with "update-rc.d -f gdm remove"? I think I'll check that out....

... Yup, I was right. After using "update-rc.d -f gdm remove" you won't be able to mount anything using GUI. When it's reversed with "sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults" everything works again. The same with renaming S20 to K20 and that's not good... How to mount it using terminal? How to know the name of the drive (USB stick or Windows partition)?

[ukchucktown]

Re: What's this plasma thing?

The numbers control the order services are started. They can and will be different between systems because we all run different services. As you discovered on your own, to stop KDM and GDM for run level 2, change S<##>kdm and S<##>gdm to K<##>kdm and K<##>gdm.

As for auto mounting drives, check out /etc/fstab. You are learning so be patient. For the most part, drives are named /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc...while partitions on a drive are /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 etc. If you want to learn more about device naming in Linux, Google udev.

Hope this helps and good luck. You have a healthy curiosity, a good trait for learning Linux. Users that prefer the point and click interface of Windows often get frustrated with Linux because it does require the command-line at times to get things done.

Cheers, UK