[CentOS] Boot CentOS 5 to command line

[Barry Brimer]

Quoting ABBAS KHAN <bashukhan at gmail.com>:

> Hi fellows,
>
> Pretty new to CentOS.
> I was trying to find a way to boot CentOS into command prompt instead of GUI
> (or without loading any services).
> Tried using 'Crl+Alt+F1' at the boot process, but, that holds the screen at
> mounting and doing fstab and doesn't proceed further.
> Is there anyother way to boot CentOS into command prompt without using
> Rescue option from the installation CD?

Edit the /etc/inittab file and change the line that says:

id:5:initdefault:

to

id:3:initdefault:

This will tell your system to boot into text mode.  If you want to switch while
you are running .. you can type "init 3" to go to text mode and "init 5" to go
to graphical mode.  This will need to be done as the root user.

Barry