how to startup without a display manager

[Ted X Toth]

Bob Arendt wrote:
> 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
>
I was going to use 'init 5' instead of 'startup' in my subject line and 
now I see I should have. I want to boot to run level 5 and start twm or 
an Openbox session instead of starting gdm.

Ted