Newer Linux distributions have the idea to boot into graphics modes.
The grub menu does this.
The init.d system does this.
X does this.
I can justify X. But both grub and init.d have only caused me troubles and never given me any joys. I am now installing on an old system that does not have any fancy graphics, so I would like to tell Debian not to touch the graphics systems at all.
Right now I have gotten grub to stay in text mode:
/etc/default/grub:
GRUB_TERMINAL=console
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=text
Followed by: update-grub
And X is disabled by not installing X.
The graphics system is still touched during init.d. I have the feeling it is some VESA mode that is being changed.
Where do I disable this, so it stays in text mode?
System info:
Debian stable:
# uname -a
Linux grb 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.54-2 i686 GNU/Linux
Edit:
Adding this to /etc/default/grub gets rid of part of it (thanks to TAFKA):
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="vga=normal nomodeset"
But the below seems to clear my scroll back buffer, too, and change the fonts:
[info] setting up console font and keymap
Putting 'exit 0' in '/etc/init.d/console-setup' works around this, but does not seem to be "the Debian way".
So the question is now down to: How to disable 'console-setup' the Debian way?
Best Answer
I don't think that's an
init
process. That's the kernel. It occurs during the boot messages, right?If you compile the kernel without framebuffer support, it should not happen. If you are using a stock kernel, it's possibly a module.
Remove that if found, run
depmod
, and reboot.If that module is not there but you have a
/dev/fb[N]
(where[N]
is a number, probably0
), you need to do it some other way. Try adding:to the kernel invocation line in
grub.cfg
.