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A Slackware Desktop Enhancement GuideConfiguring Slackware for a GUI and a Command Line Startup© Copyright Darrell Anderson. One nice thing about GNU/Linux is the GUI is not embedded completely into the system. That means when trouble arises you can boot into the command line to repair things. Sort of like a back door. Just like in the old Windows 3.x days. Rather than continually fiddling with inittab or rescue disks, an easier approach to provide this dual option is to create two boot loader menu options: one for a GUI boot and one for a command line boot. For people who prefer to boot into their GUI, modify the inittab to boot into runlevel 4. This becomes the default boot mode. Then add a second boot loader menu option. In the menu option that directs the kernel how to boot, add the init 3 kernel boot option. For example, here is a snippet from a GRUB menu.lst: title Slackware 10.2 - 2.4.28 - KDE 3.3.2 title Slackware 10.1 - 2.4.28 - Init 3 Notice that other than the obvious title description, the only difference is the init 3 option. The first option is the default boot option. Booting into runlevel 3, however, is as easy as manually selecting the second option. While on the topic of troubleshooting, consider creating some special boot floppies. With Slackware, CD-1 can be used as a rescue disk and that might be all some people need. Instead of letting the CD boot directly into setup mode, manually modify the boot command to boot to your Slack partition on your hard drive. Instructions will be on screen just after booting with the CD. Yet, what happens if the CD drive goes on the blink? Those floppies will look mighty nice. For people who use GRUB, create a GRUB boot floppy in case the hard disk MBR gets hosed. Creating the floppy is easy: grub-install /dev/fd0 This floppy does little more than point to the GRUB files on the hard disk, but this is another way to get into your box in a pinch. Slackware also provides the option to create a boot floppy. If you did not do this during the initial installation, run pkgtool and select the Setup option. Finis. |
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