Booting to a Linux Console vs. Linux Desktop - Linux Training Online - Linux Concepts & Terms
These articles, with names ending in “Linux Concepts & Terms”, have been created to help you learn how to “speak geek” and understand Linux terms - and this will help you learn how to use Linux!
Linux Tips: Rather than just defining Linux terms, these articles will describe “related” Linux terms “in context”, while using the terms to describe Linux concepts. The end result is: “Translating Linux Geek-Speak into Clear Steps for Frustration-Free Mastery!”
Booting Linux to a Console or to a Desktop and Logging In to Linux You can set up Linux to 1) boot to a console, also known as a virtual terminal - or 2) boot to a Linux desktop.
To use Linux, you must log in to Linux. You log in as a user at a login prompt at a console, or at a GUI login prompt, prior to going to a Linux desktop.
Booting Linux to a Linux Console
When you boot to a Linux console, you don’t see a Linux desktop or have access to a Linux desktop, you just see a black screen with a login prompt, and the login prompt looks similar to this: Login:
Linux Tips: Linux servers are very often installed and set up so that they boot to a Linux console (a Login: prompt) instead of a Linux desktop. In many situations, a Linux desktop is not required on a Linux server and so a desktop is not installed.
To run Linux commands to do Linux system administration, you log in as the user named root - at the Login: prompt at the console, not at a GUI login prompt prior to logging in to a desktop.
At the Login: prompt, you type in root and press Enter and then type in the password for the root user at the password prompt and press Enter.
Linux Tips: For security reasons, never log in to a Linux desktop as the root user. To work as the root user from a Linux desktop, log in to the desktop as a regular user, open a terminal emulation window and run the su command, with the - (dash) option.
The Linux terms: “Linux console”, “Linux terminal”, “Linux virtual terminal”, “vt” and “terminal emulation window” are also sometimes referred to as simply “terminal” or “console”.
Written by Clyde Boom.
