Thanx to chuck, Yannick and Mateusz for their replies.

I got a boot: prompt from my floppy and did a
mount root=/dev/hda2 single

which at least one reply told me to do.

I thought I had tried all the tty (alt+fn) but I didn't see a login prompt
when I looked. Perhaps I was a bit quick.

Thanx again.
Dp.


==== Original Message ==============
SYS: Slackware 9.1 on Dell Dim 2400, Intel Cel

I have go myself into a bit of a fix. I changed the default runlevel from 3
to 4 so I would get a GUI at boot up. However I haven't correctly
configured my Xserver and now my system is stalling at boot-up and I
can find a way to get access to a shell to edit the inittab.

Does anyone know of a switch/arg I could use that might allow me to
boot the system into single users mode? I thought I could boot from my
floppy which prompts me for a command to use.

Any ideas,
Dp.

~~
Dermot Paikkos * dermot [at] sciencephoto.com
Network Administrator [at] Science Photo Library
Phone: 0207 432 1100 * Fax: 0207 286 8668

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On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 12:51:37PM -0000, Dermot Paikkos wrote:
> I thought I had tried all the tty (alt+fn) but I didn't see a login prompt
> when I looked. Perhaps I was a bit quick.
>

You should see a prompt like this

#

single user mode doesnt look for a login, you're automaticly put into root.

> Thanx again.
> Dp.

--
Infinite complexity begets infinite beauty.
Infinite precision begets infinite perfection.
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Jim C. Brown wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 12:51:37PM -0000, Dermot Paikkos wrote:
>
>>I thought I had tried all the tty (alt+fn) but I didn't see a login prompt
>>when I looked. Perhaps I was a bit quick.
>>
>
>
> You should see a prompt like this
>
> #

But not on Slackware, It's more secure Linux distro than others and even
on single user mode you are asked for user name and password.

>
> single user mode doesnt look for a login, you're automaticly put into root.
>

This is not true on Slackware.

>
>>Thanx again.
>>Dp.
>
>

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Jim C. Brown wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 04:35:33PM +0100, Mateusz Marzantowicz wrote:
>
>>>You should see a prompt like this
>>>
>>>#
>>
>>But not on Slackware, It's more secure Linux distro than others and even
>>on single user mode you are asked for user name and password.
>>
>
>
> Thanks, I didn't know that. (Nor did I know DP was using slackware.)
> That approach has mixed blessings of course (what if you want to get into
> single user mode because you forgot the root password and need to reset it?
> -- of course there are other ways to do that)
>

I couldn't imagine situation when sysadmin simply loses his password.
But it could happen and than the only way to get into Slackware box is
to hack it. ;-)

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Mateusz Marzantowicz wrote:

> > Thanks, I didn't know that. (Nor did I know DP was using slackware.)
> > That approach has mixed blessings of course (what if you want to get into
> > single user mode because you forgot the root password and need to reset it?
> > -- of course there are other ways to do that)
>
> I couldn't imagine situation when sysadmin simply loses his password.
> But it could happen and than the only way to get into Slackware box is
> to hack it. ;-)

If you use the init=/bin/sh option, it will just run /bin/sh directly,
with no login. Or you can boot using a repair disk.

--
Glynn Clements <glynn [at] gclements.plus.com>
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