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A Slackware Desktop Enhancement Guide

Configuring Slackware for a GUI Startup — Part I

© Copyright Darrell Anderson.

A common request by new Slackware users is to boot automatically into run level 4 rather than run level 3. Although the Slackware xwmconfig utility will help users configure their X GUI environment, the utility is not designed to help users modify the default run level.

The xwmconfig program is actually a shell script. When invoked as a non-root user, the script basically copies a global xinitrc file from /etc/X11/xinit to the user’s home directory and renames that file to .xinitrc.

When starting the X graphical environment from the command line, as is done in run level 3, the startx script will search for a user’s .xinitrc file and if found use that file to help start X. Otherwise the startx script uses the default global xinitrc file.

When logged in as root, the xwmconfig utility does not copy any files to the root home directory, but instead creates a soft link to the selected /etc/X11/xinitrc file. That new link then becomes the global default xinitrc file for that system and all users.

All of this is rather straightforward except that many new Slackware users prefer a graphical login. They prefer to deal with the command line as little as possible. Therefore, xwmconfig does not help such people.

Like so much with Slackware the solution requires some simple editing. All that is needed is to modify one character in one configuration file.

  1. Obtain root privileges.
  2. Use a text editor to open the inittab configuration file. In Slackware that file is located at /etc/inittab.
  3. Near the beginning of the configuration file, just after the initial comments section, look for two lines that looks like this:

    # Default run level. (Do not set to 0 or 6)
    id:3:initdefault:
  4. The second line instructs the init command to boot into run level 3.
  5. Modify that second line to the following: id:4:initdefault:
  6. The second line will now instruct the init command to boot into run level 4.
  7. Save and exit the file.

By default the system now will now boot into run level 4.

Finis.

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