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Are these two the same thing or is startx more complicated? The only reason i say this, is when i installed a new graphics card in a computer running linux, ...
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  1. 01-15-2006 #1
    Tommaso
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    startx vs init 5

    Are these two the same thing or is startx more complicated? The only reason i say this, is when i installed a new graphics card in a computer running linux, causing x not to start, i typed startx, and it reconfigured the graphics setting automatically, so that x could start. would init 5 do the same thing or does it just give an error?
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  2. 01-15-2006 #2
    jaboua
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    init 5 would start a graphical greeter like GDM/KDM/XDM/Entrance. startx will run whatever in ~/.xinitrc

    If X wont start because of wrong settings, init 5 won't help much more than startx.
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  3. 01-15-2006 #3
    d38dm8nw81k1ng
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    i'd recommend init 5 because it starts (x/g/k)dm which you can login from. in gentoo i just run gdm. since i always login to the terminal as root (to run gdm) it's become a habit and startx would just give me a root X session (bad).
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    Package Managers! Apt-Get and Portage (among others) allow users to install programs MUCH easier than Windows can.
    Hardware Drivers. In SuSE, ALL the hardware is detected and installed automatically! How is this harder than Windows' constant disc changing and rebooting?
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  4. 01-15-2006 #4
    Tommaso
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    Thanks guys, now tell me if i understand correctly:
    I am assuming that (x/g/k) mean X windows, Gnome, and KDE? So init 5 starts them all, while startx starts whatever is in ~/.xinitrc (I am also assuming that you can define what is in there).

    So i am afraid i still don't see why init 5 is better? It would seem to me that startx is actually more customixable than init5, and so if GNOME and KDE were down, or if you only wanted to start X (not GNOME or KDE), you would probably rather do startx after you configured ~/.xinitrc, right?
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  5. 01-16-2006 #5
    Weedman
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tommaso
    Thanks guys, now tell me if i understand correctly:
    I am assuming that (x/g/k) mean X windows, Gnome, and KDE? So init 5 starts them all, while startx starts whatever is in ~/.xinitrc (I am also assuming that you can define what is in there).

    So i am afraid i still don't see why init 5 is better? It would seem to me that startx is actually more customixable than init5, and so if GNOME and KDE were down, or if you only wanted to start X (not GNOME or KDE), you would probably rather do startx after you configured ~/.xinitrc, right?
    yep. if you just wanna go into a gnome/kde/other windows manager session and youre already logged in and have the ~/.xinitrc file configured for that, then it would be quicker.
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