Press a button to disable gdm from loading on boot?

[capitales7]

Hi all.

I want to be able to press/hold down a key when ubuntu is starting up, which then stops gdm from loading, so that ubuntu loads in cli.
So far, I've come up with modifying the gdm init.d script to do a read on a specific key, which then does an exit on the rest of the script.

I haven't tried this yet... my linux-fu isn't that strong yet and I don't wanna fudge everything up.

1) Has anyone done this intelligently before?
2) Is the solution above doable and safe?

Any help is appreciated! :)

Cheers.

[zika]

Hi all.

I want to be able to press/hold down a key when ubuntu is starting up, which then stops gdm from loading, so that ubuntu loads in cli.
So far, I've come up with modifying the gdm init.d script to do a read on a specific key, which then does an exit on the rest of the script.

I haven't tried this yet... my linux-fu isn't that strong yet and I don't wanna fudge everything up.

1) Has anyone done this intelligently before?
2) Is the solution above doable and safe?

Any help is appreciated! :)

Cheers.You already have that. Be sure that You do not have auto-log-on turned ON. (Administration->LoginWindow->Security) Then, while computer is waiting for Your user-name and password press Alt-Ctrl-F1 and You are in CLI. Press Alt-Ctrl-F7 and You are back to log-in screen ...

[capitales7]

You already have that. Be sure that You do not have auto-log-on turned ON. (Administration->LoginWindow->Security) Then, while computer is waiting for Your user-name and password press Alt-Ctrl-F1 and You are in CLI. Press Alt-Ctrl-F7 and You are back to log-in screen ...

Yes there is that! But the reason I wanted to do this is to not have gnome eat up system resources when I want to leave my server running and only connect to it remotely.
I guess that's a decent solution though :)

[zika]

Remove gdm from the boot with sysv-rc-conf or through Administration->Services and start it in CLI when You need it with
(sudo) /etc/init.d/gdm start
(sudo) startxif I remember it correctly, I've done it some time ago. Nevertheles, it is easy to do it ...

[capitales7]

Remove gdm from the boot with sysv-rc-conf or through Administration->Services and start it in CLI when You need it with
(sudo) /etc/init.d/gdm start
(sudo) startxif I remember it correctly, I've done it some time ago. Nevertheles, it is easy to do it ...

lol. I'm being annoying now, but I want it to normally start gdm, but sometimes I want to start in cli.

[leniviy]

Hi. I wanted the same, so I did it for Archlinux. You can try it on your distro.
1) create file /etc/rc.d/functions.d/read_timeout or /etc/init.d/functions.d/read_timeout
or whatever functions.d dir you have or just append it to the "functions" file :


#!/bin/sh

#/etc/rc.d/functions.d/read_timeout

read_timeout_getch () # gets one char from kbd, no "Enter" necessary
{
OLD_STTY=`stty -g`
stty cbreak -echo
GETCH=`dd if=/dev/tty bs=1 count=1 2>/dev/null`
stty $OLD_STTY
}


read_timeout()
{
# try to echo 1 line or 1 char from stdin within given time
# usage: read_timeout number [-ch]
TTY=
if ((echo "">/dev/null)>/dev/tty) 2>/dev/null; then
TTY="/dev/tty"
else
TTY=`tty`
fi

if [ ! -z "$TTY" -a "$2" = "-ch" ]; then
READCMD='REPLY=`dd if="'"$TTY"'" bs=1 count=1 2>/dev/null`'
OLD_STTY="`stty -g`"
stty cbreak -echo
else
READCMD='read REPLY'
fi
(sh -c '
(sleep "$1"; kill $$ 2>/dev/null)& BG=$! \
&& '"$READCMD"' && echo "$REPLY" \
&& kill -INT $BG \
&& for PID in `ps --ppid $BG -o pid=`; do \
kill $PID; \
done \
&& kill $BG \
' _dummy_ "$1"
echo this line guarantees expression in parentheses has its own pid >/dev/null
) 2>/dev/null
if [ "$2" = "-ch" ]; then
stty "$OLD_STTY"
fi
}
2) run the following command in your terminal for testing (again, replace /etc/rc.d/functions with the actual path to "functions" file )



. /etc/rc.d/functions
echo "press Y to not start gnome";REPLY=`read_timeout 5 -ch` && if [ "$REPLY" = "y" -o "$REPLY" = "Y" ]; then echo "not starting gnome"; exit 1; fi
it should exit now if you press "Y" within 5 seconds

3) insert the second line from above into /etc/rc.d/gdm like this:


case "$1" in
start)
echo "press Y to not start gnome";REPLY=`read_timeout 5 -ch` && if [ "$REPLY" = "y" -o "$REPLY" = "Y" ]; then echo "not starting gnome"; exit 1; fi
stat_busy "Starting GDM"
/usr/sbin/gdm
test it: /etc/rc.d/gdm start
switch to text terminal and try there, finally, reboot and try at boot time

P.S. upgrades can replace modified "gdm" file, consider creating a wrapper script and launch it instead of gdm.