[wplug] Newbie question on graphical login

Alexandros Papadopoulos apapadop at cmu.edu
Mon Nov 11 10:57:13 EST 2002


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On Monday 11 November 2002 09:21, Mark Haney wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Most questions I have seen on graphical login are related to how to
> get it to work. Well, I can't seem to get it to go away!
>
> I installed Debian 3.0, and when the tasksel screen came up I chose
> only the 'X Window System' and 'Dialup System' tasks. The install
> worked,but when I booted into the system, up came the graphical logon
> screen (xdm). I thought I could get rid of it by 'apt-get remove
> xdm'. Nope. It went away yesterday, but when I booted the system
> today, the graphical login screen popped up again!
>
> So, my questions are:
> 1) Is there any advantage to the graphical login? I would rather
> login to the command line, and use 'startx' if I want to use X. I
> know I can get a command line using the virtual terminals, but this
> is an old machine, and I don't want x running and sucking up
> resources.

No advantage, unless you're migrating Window$ users to Linux and believe 
that a text login would result in serious brain damage.

KDM, XDM and any login manager out there has to be suid root. It also 
runs as a service (i.e. continuously). Contrast that with the first 
rules of linux/UNIX security - thou shalt turn off any unnecessary 
services && thou shalt minimize the amount of suid binaries on your 
system - and you have very good reasons to get rid of graphical login.

>
> 2) How can I make Debian boot into the command line? (I'm currently
> also researching this on my own... it must have something to do with
> the init scripts and run levels, but at my newbie stage I haven't
> been able to find and fix it yet.)
>

edit /etc/inittab and change

id:5:initdefault: (default runlevel is 5)

to

id:3:initdefault: (runlevel 3 - i.e. no login manager)

- -A
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