Running Linux, Third Edition

Post-Installation: Setting Up the BootX Software

BootX is very easy to configure after you’ve partitioned your hard disk. Type in the device name of your root partition. If you followed the example, the root device will be sda7 or hda9, depending on what kind of disk is in your hard disk.

[Caution: You can make a mistake in the following paragraph that disables or damages your system or is hard to recover from.]

Make sure that the Use RAM Disk option is not checked. If this option remains on, the computer will boot into the installer instead of booting into Linux from the hard disk.

The No Video Driver option should be turned on. This option provides a video display on most systems, including those with cards that have no Linux video driver.

LinuxPPC R4 boots directly into the X Window System and boots the KDE window manager. If you would prefer Linux not to boot into KDE, it’s very easy to modify the system. Like all things in Linux, there’s a file that controls this aspect of the system. KDE is started in /etc/inittab.

Use your favorite Unix text editor (such as pico or vi) to edit the file. The line you need to modify is at the very end of the file. It’s the third line in this text:

# Run xdm in runlevel 5
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/X11/xdm -nodaemon
x:3:once:/opartition/kde/bin/kdm -nodaemon

Change the 3 to 5. That’s it! The next time you boot LinuxPPC, it will stay at the console instead ...