[SATLUG] Booting Kubuntu 6.10 into Command Line

[Daniel J. Givens]

On Thu, 05 Apr 2007 09:49:41 -0500, Geoff <geoff at w5omr.shacknet.nu> wrote:
> For the original poster, boot yer machine up, and when it's ready for
> input on the gui, press "Ctrl-Alt-F1", and go to tty1, type, at the
> prompt,
> ~> init 3
> 
> and that'll shut down your X session, and you can configure the video
> card.

Minor correction. init 3 on Ubuntu based systems still starts X display manager. You can remove the runlevel 3 startup of GDM/KDM/XDM to get appropriate runlevel 3 action (that's what I do). If you don't need network access, you could go to runlevel 1 or boot the recovery kernel listed in GRUB. The final option is to switch to TTY1 as others have said before, stop GDM/KDM/XDM and install your NVIDIA drivers. Here's that process.

<CTRL>+<ALT>+7
$ sudo /etc/init.d/(gdm|kdm|xdm) stop
(Install NVIDIA drivers)
$ sudo /etc/init.d/(gdm|kdm|xdm) start

The Debian/Ubuntu way would be to install the drivers via apt. I personally use Alberto Milone's packages[1]. He has the latest NVIDIA and ATI drivers for Dapper and Edgy, as well as "Legacy" and "New Legacy", but I'm not sure what that means. I've never had a problem with his packages. Hope this helps.

[1] http://albertomilone.com/driver.html

Cheers,
Daniel