> davidturetsky wrote: > > I used xf86config to try to create an x platform, and with > the failure of earlier attempts, reduced the screen > choices. Lo and behold, when I just boot up, I came up to > a screen (somewhat inelegant) with a big fat x toward the > middle, but with the mouse and keyboard otherwise > apparently frozen > > Earlier today on reading a related post, I downloaded > XFree86 3.3.6 which seems to provide new support for my > NVIDIA GeForce graphics card > > I'd now like to install it > > How to I get in and delete enough of the earlier install > to get back a command line. I assume the way to start is > by booting via a floppy > > Then what? > > David
No need to boot from floppy; at the somewhat inelegant screen, simply press Ctrl-Alft-F1 which should take you to the first virtual terminal. From there, you can log in as root, do a "ps ax" to find the PID of xdm/wdm/gdm/whatever, and then do a "kill -9 <thePIDnumber>". Now you should be able to do whatever you need to upgrade, and you can start X manually with "startx", or reboot to re-enable xdm/wdm/gdm/whatever, or restart xdm/whatever by running the appropriate script in /etc/rc2.d (e.g. "./S99xdm start").
