Debian Question

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Just curious, I just installed Debian since my schools running Debian and I need to be doing some shell programming this semester, so I thought it might be time to jump the linux boat.

Anyways, after trying forever to install it, I finally figured out how to instal the OS. Now I have no idea what I needed or did, I just did the default installation when choosing aplications to install, so I might need to install more later. First quick quesiton though, right now when it boots, it heads straight to the GUI version of Debian, now I find it slightly cumbersome, reason being I'm running this on a 200mhz Pentium from 9 years ago, with a 14inch CRT which does pretty much just 640x480... so I can't see half of what's going on on the screen. What i need to know is if there was a way to change the resolution, how do I get it to boot up to command line instead of a gui, and lastly, how the hell do I shut down my computer now? When I login as a user and try to shut it down, it says I must be the super user (ie the root), but when I try to login as the root, it says that the administrator may not log in at this screen (the GUI login screen).

Any answers would be great, thanks!
 
you can login as root in a terminal by using the su command. Then while su'd to root, issue the poweroff or halt -p command, either one will turn the computer off.

To change to text mode boot edit the /etc/inittab as root and change the line that says default runlevel:5 to be 3 instead.

To alter the GUI resolution, you'd need to edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, the section dealing with screens is at the end of the file. Odds are though your video hardware may not have much capability for higher resolutions or else that would have been configured during the install. You can also generally change resolution using the tools of your desktop environment. KDE at least has it in the control center in the peripherals/xserver section. Make the change there and then restart the X server with a quick CTRL + ALT + Backspace.

Not sure why you can't login as root at the GUI.... try googling for an answer to that one?
 
gdm and xdm don't allow root login to X for security reasons. You can also get rid of gui login by removing which ever one you happen to use. If you want a rootshell in gui, just SU, or get rid of either xdm and gdm, login as root, and startx. As the previous poster said, resolution is changed in XF86Config-4 in /etc/X11/. Look for something like this:
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
 
Arkaine23 said:
you can login as root in a terminal by using the su command. Then while su'd to root, issue the poweroff or halt -p command, either one will turn the computer off.
Click to expand...

Sorry for my noobness... but what's su command?
 
su is the 'switch user' or 'super user' command depending on how it is used:

su just by itself is 'super user' or root, just type it in alone at the prompt and it will then ask you for the root password. After this you become the root user.

su 'username' allows you to become that user if you have that user's password or you are root. Useful for installing some programs like sybase.
 
JediGuy_Bob said:
su is the 'switch user' or 'super user' command depending on how it is used:

su just by itself is 'super user' or root, just type it in alone at the prompt and it will then ask you for the root password. After this you become the root user.

su 'username' allows you to become that user if you have that user's password or you are root. Useful for installing some programs like sybase.
Click to expand...

o..... ic ic.... that makes a bit of sense. so I would have to get to a textbase command line, put that in and then I can edit essentially all the system files? Right now with Debian, it seems it's using a GNome 1.4 base, how can I unload it? just edit those config files posted earlier from command line?

Btw... when I run man pages... how do I quit out of the man pages?
 
when you're done with a man page hit 'q'. That will quit it and you can move along.

Now to change your runlevel to only boot in command line go to /etc/rc2.d/ and rename the files
S99gdm ( and if you have it S99xdm )

to be
K99gdm ( and likewise K99xdm )

Then you can either reboot or (I'm not sure if this works) change the runlevel by typing:
telinit 2

I know it changes the runlevel, but not sure if it reloads rc.d if you are already at that runlevel.
 
deuce868 said:
when you're done with a man page hit 'q'. That will quit it and you can move along.

Now to change your runlevel to only boot in command line go to /etc/rc2.d/ and rename the files
S99gdm ( and if you have it S99xdm )

to be
K99gdm ( and likewise K99xdm )

Then you can either reboot or (I'm not sure if this works) change the runlevel by typing:
telinit 2

I know it changes the runlevel, but not sure if it reloads rc.d if you are already at that runlevel.
Click to expand...
wow... i have no ideas what those are... or what run levels are.... :| I guess my first question should have been, where can I find some good Linux/Debian tutorials online? Or if there are some good books, what books? And also if someone wouldn't mind giving a brief overview of how Linux and Debian relate (like is Debian a shell? or is Debian a nice GUI that goes on top of a Bash shell or something, and what is gnome exactly? and yeah... I'm just really confused).

Thanks!
 
OK, debian is a distribution of Linux. Think of it like there's Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2003 Advanced Server...they have the same base, but each is a bit different. Same goes for linux distrobutions albiet in a more dramatic way.

As for tutorials and such, any linux tutorial will get you close usually. You can search for runlevel tutorials and they should help you get an idea what I'm talking about. Basically runlevels allow you to setup predefined "modes" for the server. It can do things like have one runlevel for text mode and another for giu mode. Let's say you want to have a mode that has apache, mysql, and php running. Then you can turn those things on and off ina runlevel and leave them off in another. Now you can choose which "mode" to use. Some runlevels have special meanings like 1 is for single user mode and 6 is for reboot. if you change to runlevel 6 with telinit it will reboot your PC.
 
deuce868 said:
OK, debian is a distribution of Linux. Think of it like there's Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2003 Advanced Server...they have the same base, but each is a bit different. Same goes for linux distrobutions albiet in a more dramatic way.

As for tutorials and such, any linux tutorial will get you close usually. You can search for runlevel tutorials and they should help you get an idea what I'm talking about. Basically runlevels allow you to setup predefined "modes" for the server. It can do things like have one runlevel for text mode and another for giu mode. Let's say you want to have a mode that has apache, mysql, and php running. Then you can turn those things on and off ina runlevel and leave them off in another. Now you can choose which "mode" to use. Some runlevels have special meanings like 1 is for single user mode and 6 is for reboot. if you change to runlevel 6 with telinit it will reboot your PC.
Click to expand...

O... aight.. that makes sense, now how is Debian as a distribution on a whole? Easy to use? or hard to learn on? Main reason I installed Debian is because the University of Toronto uses it on their Linux machines, and I'll be doing some shell programming this year in C for those machines, so I thought I should load up Debian, since I can't do everything I would need to in Windows. So would Debian be a good choice? or should I try Suse 9.1 or something else?
 
Debian's a good choice, esepcially if you're going to be working with it on other systems.

It's not terribly hard to learn. Its also easy to get used to its package manager- apt-get. Since you're on an older computer, you might want to try a lightweight window manager instead of gnome.

You could-

su
apt-get update
apt-get install fluxbox
apt-get install icewm


Then edit the /etc/initab like I mentioned earlier to have a default runlevel of 3, for a text mode login. As a regular user-

create a text file called .xinitrc in your home directory

In this file-

# exec gnome-session
icewm
# fluxbox


Put a # in front of whichever GUI 's you do NOT want to use. This example would use icewm, a light-weight and somewhat windows-like GUI.

So when booting you'd first have a text mode login. Login as a user and then run the command startx. This will then launch whichever GUI you have selected in your .xinitrc file.
 
Debian is a good OS, but I always recommend Mandrake Linux to anyone who is starting on linux for the first time. Some people groan when I say this, because to the 'leet' linux users, it's always downtalked. I mean, I can see where they are coming from, seeing as how I use Gentoo on my server. But, everyone was a noob at one point, and you have to learn one way or another. I still remember opening up Mandrake's version of "My Computer' on 7.2 and being like "Where is my ^&*(( floppy and cdrom" lol. I can look back and laugh now, but everyone was confused at one point, so don't get discouraged if people start rambling off /'s left and right, with periods in there, and you are confused. Just keep at it, and read all you can.
 
Arkaine23 said:
you can login as root in a terminal by using the su command. Then while su'd to root, issue the poweroff or halt -p command, either one will turn the computer off.

To change to text mode boot edit the /etc/inittab as root and change the line that says default runlevel:5 to be 3 instead.

To alter the GUI resolution, you'd need to edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, the section dealing with screens is at the end of the file. Odds are though your video hardware may not have much capability for higher resolutions or else that would have been configured during the install. You can also generally change resolution using the tools of your desktop environment. KDE at least has it in the control center in the peripherals/xserver section. Make the change there and then restart the X server with a quick CTRL + ALT + Backspace.

Not sure why you can't login as root at the GUI.... try googling for an answer to that one?
Click to expand...

Whoops... i deleted my XF86COnfig-4 file.... what do I do now? :| It just goes straight into command line, and I can't run gdm or kdm.... and I still can't change the stupid screen resolution :|
 
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