Re: screen in single user mode - "cannot open /dev/console"

[soumen]

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Geraint Edwards <address@hidden> wrote:

John Davidorff Pell <address@hidden> said
               (on Wed, May 21, 2008 at 10:01:11PM -0700):

> Mac OS X is the only system that I know of that calls something "single user mode".

You look like you're quoting from the Wikipedia entry.

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_user_mode

It's wrong - I should update it.

Of course, FreeBSD and Mac OS X are related, so this may be repeating what you said:

       http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot-init.html#BOOT-SINGLEUSER

Even Solaris (once a BSD-based O/S) has "run level S" which is also called single-user mode.

       http://www.ussg.iu.edu/usail/man/solaris/init.1.html

Need I mention OpenBSD (and NetBSD probably has it too)?

       http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=init

--
Geraint A. Edwards (aka "Gedge")
address@hidden

Thanks to all for responding and sorry I couldn't reply earlier. 

I am using Ubuntu Linux (Gutsy Gibbon):

$ uname -a
Linux loki 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 07:42:25 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

By "single user mode" I talk of, I mean "single" parameter being passed by Grub bootloader during startup:

kernel        /vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=7bb7e9b4-7134-430d-b2bb-cd33c45d0acd ro single
initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic

I am able to also reach this mode by doing "init 1". I understand that
this is supposed to be a spartan recovery mode or for situations where
you don't want multiple users. 

But in context of my home setup, I wanted to use this to avoid starting
up too many services/X/Gnome etc since all I want to do is run some
long-running command line programs (for which screen is more than
adequate and in fact, perfect). My intention is to use least amount of
CPU/memory.

I have noticed that even in this "single" mode, there are services like
ntp running and the network interface is already configured so I am
able to access internet. So it is not that Nothing is running.

> If you want a textual login then start up normally, and choose
"Other..." at the login window prompt and enter
> ">console" (without
quotes). If you do not see "Other..." then hold option and press down,
then while still 
> holding option press return. This will take you to the
"Other..." pane where you can enter ">console".


I don't see these choices when I go into the "Single" user mode or when
I start normally and get to GDM (Gnome Display Manager). So not sure
how to enable this. As I said, I don't want to run X etc.

Hope this information is of help to you for suggesting a/the solution for me :)

Regards,
Soumen