Run level 3 on Live CD

[Jason Shein]

On Monday 27 February 2006 02:51, Kihara Muriithi wrote:
> Hi,
>  Yesterday, I wanted to introduce a friend to Linux. Of course the first
> thing one does it run a Live CD on the party in question PC. That's when I
> landed in problem.
>  The computer boots alright, but X is all fuzzy. I could make icons here
> and there, but I would be lying to say the computer was usable. Oh, and
> there was five instances of every object. i.e. Five mice pointers, five
> firefox icons etc. I forgot to pick the hardware profile of the computer,
> but that can be fixed tomorrow.
>  My first reaction was, oh, easily, drop to level 3 and try starting X
> manually. Kill it a minute later and look at the log. After rebooting
> Ubantu, it dawned to me grub don't understand "e", "b" and "a" commands.
> There is a silly diagnostic option, but it don't drop me on a shell. Also,
> I can't get to the PC through the network as I don't have a root password.
> How do you fix such an inflexible set up?
>
> Thanks in advance
> William

For starters I have found in the past by simply changing the resolution fron 
the default 1024x768 to 800x600 it often solves this issue. This is done at 
the boot prompt. The different boot options are visible by using F1 through 
F8

You could try
#linux screen=800x600 xvrefresh=60

About the root password, are you able to get to a console? ctrl+alt+F1

If you can, then type the following to enter a root password
#sudo su
#passwd


-- 
Jason Shein
Director of Networking, Operations and Systems
Detached Networks
jason-xgs8i/e9EeWTtA8H5PvdGCwD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org
( 905 ) - 876 - 4158 Voice
( 905 ) - 876 - 5817 Mobile
http://www.detachednetworks.ca
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml