Thanks for the info – that’s really useful stuff. I’ll definitely take a look at Qingy.

J

Different runlevels may do different things on different distributions. To see what your distribution does, examine the /etc/inittab file. For reference, look at the boot, init, login, and inittab man pages.

As for detailed information about what would come up if you did not use a display manager, that same inittab file should have a series of lines similar to this:

c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty1 linux
c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty2 linux
c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty3 linux

c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty6 linux

These lines tell the init program to start login prompts on TTYs 1-6. A tty is a virtual terminal, and that is what the Ctrl-Alt-Fn keys switch between. Your particular distribution may use a program other than agetty, such as getty. The origin of these obscure names is the main purpose of the program: “get a tty”.

As this is a related issue, I would actually recommend that you investigate the “qingy” program, which probably does not come with your base distribution. Qingy is not getty, but is a graphical login prompt similar to display managers. The advantage is that it does not use the X-server. This is a security improvement over xdm, kdm, gdm, entrance, etc. because it does not require the X-server to be run as root. It also allows you to log in to text sessions without ever starting X at all. Take a look for it on google.

It’s also worth noting that pressing Ctrl + Alt + F1 should bring you to the same login screen while the display manager is running (and pressing Ctrl + Alt + F7 brings you back)