[Macpartners] OS X and Darwin

[Kerem B Limon]

You can switch to a Darwin console at the Login Window prompt by typing
">console" as the username and no password. This seems to shut down Quartz and
gives you a traditional UNIX-style text console prompt. When you logout, Quartz
re-spawns and you get back to the Login Window.

Fast user switching does not seem to work with this, at least on plain old
10.3(.0). When I login via the Login Window under Quartz, spawn a few
apps/processes, then choose the Login Window (as opposed to another user's
icon) from the upper right-hand corner fast user switching menu and type in
>console, it seems to try to kill of Quartz, but stops short and returns to the
Login Window--probably realizing the other user is still running some GUI
stuff.

There are three possibilities as to what you saw: (1) This is what the person
did, and logged in in between switching between text and GUI mode login
sessions; (2) they were running a convincingly skinned X11 setup on top of
Darwin or a Linux distro and just used getty(s) to do it; or (3) there is some
further possibility to do this by configuring getty or getty like processes
running in parallel with Quartz and available via a pre-defined keystroke.

Kerem


Quoting Scott Ehrlich <scott at MIT.EDU>:

> I received many responses mentioning switching users.  I should probably
> clarify and be more specific with the questions I have:
> 
> - How do I start a non-GUI UNIX session (i.e. start Darwin in
> command line-only mode?
> 
> - Start a parallel "regular" GUI session
> 
> - Switch between them?
> 
> 
> Switching users might be the answer to #3.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Scott
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Kerem B. Limon
kerem.limon at mit.edu /e-mail