X-Windows must DIE!

[guest1955]

Just a quick question:

I am using Mandrake 10.0 and wanted to install the latest drivers for my TNT2 card. The documentation states that you must close down x-windows but doesnt give a clue as to how to do it. There doesn't seem to be any apparent option for shutting it down, and when I reboot in "failsafe" mode, it won't allow me to run the driver software. Does anyone know the command that I need?

Thanks

[adolescent]

Depending on how you have it running, CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE will exit out, but it might come back up.  Otherwise, just change to a different console and use the kill command.

[Piru]

What is X-Windows?















Hint: It's X, XFree86, X Window System. It's NOT Windows. Windows is something completely different... :-)

[Failure]

Hiya, chances are you are booting into a display manager, and you are in runlevel 5 (disclaimer: I have never used Mandrake).  You can try two things, as root:

# /etc/init.d/xdm stop

xdm might be called wdm, kdm, or gdm depending on setup.  It's more than likely kdm or gdm.  Or you can try:

# init 3

That will put you in runlevel 3 which, in Linux excepting Debian and some others, is multi-user with no display manager.  This will kill X as well.

CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE with a display manager will just bring you to the display manager login screen, with X still running.  If you put it into runlevel three to install the driver, do "init 5" to start the display manager back up.

Hope this helps!

[guest1955]

@Piru
There's no need to be pedantic.

@adolescent
CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE takes me back to the login screen.
If I use the "kill" command what should follow it (pid?)

[guest1955]

@Failure
"init 3" did the trick. Thanks.

The problem now is that I get "Permission Denied" when I run the driver (as root)- anybody had any experience installing the NVidia display driver within Linux? Any further help would be muchly appreciated.

Thanks

[adolescent]

I have the NVidia driver installed, but I installed it from SuSE's package manager.

[Failure]

Try "sh nvidia_driver_filename", or chmod a+x the driver first, and it should work.  It's almost certainly just not set executable.

[guest1955]

I've managed to get it to work. The problem was in the driver file's properties: "is executable" was unchecked in "Permissions". Checking it instantly solved the problem.

Thanks to all of you

Now I have 3d accelerated lovliness!