Hangs "prefdm respawning too fast stopped"

[tpickard]

I was trying to get Apache working and now when I reboot I get a hang problem. It stops at system logger, continues with multiple failures and stops with the "prefdm respawning too fast stopped" error. But the system is not dead! I can get into my Samba shares from my WinBlows desktop.

I am fairly sure the problem revolves around the Apache Tomcat 5. It says that the network card fails, but the Samba works.

I suck at the command line interface for linux. I'm not familiar enough with the commands or the structure of the linux OS. So any help on bypassing the problem to get the GUI loaded so I can uninstall the Apache or how to access the command line and uninstall the Apache that way would be greatly appreciated.

I'm learning slowly, by causing and working through problems (just like I did with WinBlows), but I wish I could keep this machine running and do my break fix learning on a different box. One of these days maybe. In the meantime, HELP!

[Rubberman]

If you think it's tomcat, you can just uninstall that. Login as root and execute the command: yum remove tomcat. That will remove tomcat and anything that depends upon it from the system. Then reboot.

[tpickard]

Ok. Sounds great. In fact pretty much what I was thinking I should do. Um, how do I get it to give me a login? It is trying a level 5 boot (I think that is the term for going straight to the GUI (which I think is what is hanging with prefdm)). How do I reset it to a level 3 without being able to login?

Like I said, I'm a real novice with linux.

[Rubberman]

Ok. Sounds great. In fact pretty much what I was thinking I should do. Um, how do I get it to give me a login? It is trying a level 5 boot (I think that is the term for going straight to the GUI (which I think is what is hanging with prefdm)). How do I reset it to a level 3 without being able to login?

Like I said, I'm a real novice with linux.

Can you get to the login screen? If so, then you should be able to select the "safe mode" option. If not, then boot a liveCD or recovery disc, login as root, mount the partition where the root file system is, normally /dev/sda3 (/dev/sda1 is usually /boot and /dev/sda2 is usually swap). If, for example, the mount point you used for that is /mnt/rootfs, you can cd /mnt/rootfs/etc and edit the file inittab. There should be a line like this:

id:5:initdefault:

You want to change it to:

id:3:initdefault:

Then you reboot, and voila! you are in text mode.