uefi/elilo change to boot into terminal mode rather than X

[John Forkosh]

I installed slackware onto a uefi disk (with a preinstalled windows)
after booting from a slacklive usb stick and clicking that "Install on hdd"
button on the upper-left-hand side of the screen. Works fine, but immediately
starts X when now booted from the disk partition. I'd rather boot into
terminal mode and startx manually when I'm ready. How do I change all the
elilo stuff to do that?

My /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/elilo.conf just contains....
chooser=simple
delay=1
timeout=1
#
image=vmlinuz
label=vmlinuz
initrd=initrd.gz
read-only
append="root=/dev/sda7 vga=normal ro"
....which doesn't seem to have anything relevant that I can see.

Also, the /etc/X11/xinit/ has xinitrc->xinitrc.kde
I prefer fvwm2 and changed the symlink accordingly,
but it still automatically boots into kde.
I assume the changed symlink will work once I boot
into terminal mode and startx myself. But if I can't
boot into terminal mode, is there at least some way
to run fvwm2 instead of kde?

[Mark Cudworth]

I'd rather boot into terminal mode and startx manually when I'm ready. How do I change all the
elilo stuff to do that?

This isn't controlled by the boot process like you mention. You want to
change the default runlevel in /etc/inittab from 4 to 3.

[Lew Pitcher]

Post by Mark Cudworth

I'd rather boot into terminal mode and startx manually when I'm ready.
How do I change all the elilo stuff to do that?

This isn't controlled by the boot process like you mention.

But, it /can/ be. The "append" statement (both in lilo and elilo)
passes additional parameters to the kernel, including the startup
runlevel. From /usr/src/linux/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt:
The kernel parses parameters from the kernel command line up to "--";
if it doesn't recognize a parameter and it doesn't contain a '.', the
parameter gets passed to init: parameters with '=' go into init's
environment, others are passed as command line arguments to init.
Everything after "--" is passed as an argument to init.

/If/ the elilo "append" statement had read
append="root=/dev/sda7 vga=normal ro 4"
then the kernel would have passed "4" to init, to be used as the
initial runlevel.

Post by Mark Cudworth
You want to
change the default runlevel in /etc/inittab from 4 to 3.

Agreed.

[John Forkosh]

Post by Mark Cudworth

I'd rather boot into terminal mode and startx manually when I'm ready.
How do I change all the elilo stuff to do that?

This isn't controlled by the boot process like you mention. You want to
change the default runlevel in /etc/inittab from 4 to 3.

Thanks Mark and Lew. That worked immediately (ditto for starting fvwm2).
Don't know why I kept thinking it was controlled by the boot process.
Probably due to that stuff in lilo.conf (for my usual non-uefi boxes)
about boot screens. But when you mentioned inittab, I finally recalled
that runlevel stuff, though I'd never had to manually mess with it before.

[John Forkosh]

Post by Mark Cudworth

I'd rather boot into terminal mode and startx manually when I'm ready.
How do I change all the elilo stuff to do that?

This isn't controlled by the boot process like you mention. You want to
change the default runlevel in /etc/inittab from 4 to 3.

Didn't you get a login screen when you go to kde? In this I thought
there was a button (at least in 3.5) where you could select the session
to be any of the window managers available, thus also fvwm?
You can also take a look at /etc/rc.d/rc.4 and comment the kde stuff to
get the xdm login screen, which should pick up the correct one.

Thanks for the additional info. Yeah, got the login screen, and I suppose
you're right about the wm button, but I didn't notice it (actually, noticed
a button, but didn't try it to see what it does). If the inittab change
wasn't possible, then I guess this would've been the fallback solution.