can't get terminal window on suse 10.1; only gdm works

[sysus]

Hi -

During my search for answers, I couldn't find anyone who had problems opening a terminal window (outside of the windows manager). ...the majority of my hits were people stuck in terminal -- who couldn't get to gdm, kde, etc.

If I set the run level to 5 in /etc/inittab

id:5:initdefault:

...gdm starts fine (although the display receives no signal until the Gnome display manager completely loads). If I set the level to 3, I get nothing.

If I use ctrl-alt-f1 to open a terminal window, the display goes blank. I can switch back to the desktop with ctrl-alt-f7.

This is my first linux install. Any suggestions or guidance is appreciated.

thanks,
SysUs (Dan).

[eAragorn]

Check ur /etc/inittab file whether it has entries to start those terminals (tty1 to 6). They should appear something like

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

[bigtomrodney]

Are you using a DVI output or a VGA?

[sysus]

Thanks eAragorn. I do have those entries in my inittab file. the tty1 entry is a little different:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1

Removing --noclear had no affect.

I have to admit I know little about how to configure /etc/inittab. I'll do some more research to see if there's something I'm missing.

Thanks again for you reply.

SysUs (Dan).

[sysus]

vga video output; monitor is an Envision flat panel

Thanks, Dan.