turning off GDM

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2005-08-28 at 21:39 -0700, wagz211 at isp.com wrote:
> Hey I know this probably sounds like a dumb question but how do I turn the 
> graphical login manager GDM off temporarily so that I can install the NVIDIA 
> graphics drivers. Would really appreciate some  help. ps Im using debian with 
> a 2.6 kernel if that matters.
----
try <Control><Alt><F2> to get a virtual console

login as root

type 'telinit 1' # switches to runlevel 1

install whatever you need to install

type telinit 2 # or 3 or 4 or whatever debian is for a non-gui multi-
user environment

then log in as a normal user and try 'startx' - it it works fine, then
you can go back to your original runlevel # is your default runlevel 4?
I don't know the runlevels on debian since I have come to the belief
that they are not the same as redhat.

Craig