Re: Kde Plasma Desktop Vs. Ci
By: MIKE POWELL to NIGHTFOX on Mon Feb 02 2026 09:09:00

I remember it used to be that in Linux, you could set the 'runlevel' to determine whether it
automatically started in the desktop environment or not think runlevel 3 was to start up at t > > console, and runlevel 5 was to start in the desktop environment; specifically, to launch XFre > > on startup). And remember being able to exit out of XFree86, and also running 'startx' to run > > XFree86 again. Is that not the case anymore?

If you are still using a distro that uses a flavor of init, like Devuan,
you can probably still do these things. If you are using a distro that
has migrated to systemd, I am not certain if that would work anymore or
not.

With most distros, you can use a CTRL-ALT-F# at the GUI logon manager main menu to get a consol > instead.

I found the neatest display manager to be Ly, which allows me to launch a conventional X session,
enter a shell on the tty, or even start the user's xinit startx! Since modern DMs have to juggle
around X sessions and Wayland sessions and even seats, I found Ly to usually do the job quicker.


Also consider other systemd-free distros that are having more maintained ecosystems, like Void! Notsure how does its init system handle this though.

However startx should still work on the getty consoles even on the most systemd distros

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