[CentOS] Turning off Gnome and other stuff

[John Wojnaroski]

Hi.

Just did a Centos5.1 on a dual-core 64 bit machine,  sweet!!!

But would like to turn off the desktop and just about all the programs 
started when the X server is fired up.  The  machine will be driving a 
full scale 737NG cockpit flight simulator and we really don't need 
anything beyond the X server and an xorg.conf file to setup the two 
dual-headed graphics cards.

The cockpit will be controlled from a remote instructor's station and we 
do NOT want anything showing up on cockpit displays other than what is 
present in the actual cockpit, no screen login prompts, no menus,  no 
desktops, icons, frames, pop-ups, screensaveres, etc.  Any window 
manager if present must allow the apps to render all opengl displays in 
a "full screen" mode. 

Started through the init, startup, and Xsessions scripts and files to 
shut things down, but kept having problems following all the sequences, 
scripts, and finding where everything was located, not to mention error 
and warning msgs.  In addition, it appears the Gnome program or whatever 
may be over-riding and restoring configurations.

Thought of posting to the Gnome users forums, but since this is what 
Centos setup during the install and RH has a slightly different way of 
organizing files and scripts, decided to start here with the question.

Is there a simple way to turn all the applets and such off and start 
from the command line?  Idea is to come up with a default level of 3 via 
the inittab, due a remote login and then a command line entry "startx &" 
to start the X server, possibly a minimum window manager, and then go 
right into the sim programs.

Regards
John W.