how to startup without a display manager

[Bob Arendt]

Tony Breeds wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 06:31:41PM -0500, Ted X Toth wrote:
>> I want to play with Openbox on Fedora as a standalone window manager. Do 
>> I need to configure /etc/X11/prefdm to not start any display manager?
> 
> IIRC (it's been a while) You change the default init level from 5 to 3.
> 
> You can do this by either:
> a) changing the "id" line of /etc/inittab from:
> 	id:5:initdefault:
>    to
> 	id:3:initdefault:
>    and rebooting
> or;
> b) Appending a "3" to your kernel options, and rebooting.
> 
> That should leave you at a console login, from which you can startx
> 
> Yours Tony
> 
>   linux.conf.au    http://www.marchsouth.org/
>   Jan 19 - 24 2009 The Australian Linux Technical Conference!
> 

   c) Without rebooting - change to vt (say, ctl-alt-F1).
        init 3                   (go to runlevel 3, no Xserver)
        startx  /usr/bin/xterm   (manually start the Xserver with a program)

This example used xterm.  I'll use this for quick xserver tests.
When the xserver comes up, I'll start a window manager at the command
line (say, "twm").  Then I can run things like glxgears in a fairly
raw environment.  You can use a window manager as the start program
as well (/usr/bin/metacity) or a session startup (/usr/bin/startxfce4).
It's important to give the full path of the executable to startx.

When the original program quits, the Xserver exits (like exiting the
original xterm).

To get back to the normal graphical mode, type "init 5".

The init commands have to issued as root.

It's best to use a seperate VT and login as a mortal user
to run startx (as noted in earlier threads, many advise against
running an X-session as root).  Have fun.

Cheers,
-Bob Arendt