Would like to get back my command prompt!

[James Alexander Cook]

On Sun, Apr 24, 2005 at 02:37:23PM +0000, Michael Neeff wrote:
> A newbie with installing FreeBSD 5.3...I installed X and got excited to 
> direcly log on to X (xdm) with the dialog box. I modified the lineto turn 
> xterm on:
> ttyv8 "/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm - nodaemon" xterm ON secure.
> Now I am stuck in a login loop... I would like to configure X and install 
> KDE, but it is stuck on the ChooseSessionListWidet I can only choose 2 
> options DEFAULT/FAIL SAFE and CANCEL and nothing happens in either case... 
> hitting CTRL+ALT_+BKSPACE does nothing
> 
> How do I just login to the command prompt without X opening directly?? I 
> think I tried option 6 and it gives me a command prompt but I cannot edit 
> any file.

I have two ideas.

1. After X has opened, press CTRL-ALT-FN where N is a number from 1-8.  That
   should bring you to a text-based virtual terminal.  To go back to X, type
   CTRL-ALT-F9.

2. If 1 doesn't work, try booting in single-user mode.  From there, you can
   remount / read-write, mount /usr (to get access to an editor like vi),
   then "vi /etc/ttys" and turn off X11.

   # mount -u -o rw /
   # mount /usr
   # vi /etc/ttys

   I don't remember for sure, but I think you'll want to type

   # mount -a

   before exiting the single-user session to boot the system; I don't think
   your filesystems are mounted automatically otherwise.

> 
> Thanks in advance.
> Mike

- James Cook
  james.cook at utoronto.ca