Getting to a console at runlevel 5

[Stefan Bruda]

At 12:31 -0500 on 2002-10-28 Jonathan Singer wrote:
 >
 > I broke something in X, and booting in runlevel 5 gets to an unusable
 > screen. I can't get to a virtual console and am wondering what the next best
 > way is to get to a text-only screen from which I can start troubleshooting.

Boot from the rescue CD (aka "Tasty morsels").  Press Enter ar the
boot prompt.  Then mount your / --you know where it is, right?
Assuming that / is /dev/hda5, do

    mount /dev/hda5 /root

Then cd to /root and you are on your file systems.  In particular,
your inittab is now /root/etc/inittab and you can edit it, no problem,
vi at least should be available.

If you want to work in your usual environment, cd to /root and then do

    chroot /root

This way, you can also run ybin in case you need to update the boot
partition (which I believe you don't, but anyway).

Finally, if you do not want a fsck of your / partition upon reboot,
don't forget to umount /root once finished.

Hope this helps,
Stefan

-- 
If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as
it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.
    --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass