Boot without gui into different runlevel

[.09.]

Hi

I have installed 10.04 LTS server and after that x-window-system-core, gnome-core and gdm. Now it boots to a gui in runlevel 2.

1. How can I set the default runlevel to 3?

and

2. boot into runlevel 3 without a gui?

[cdenley]

So you want GDM to start for runlevels 2,4, and 5? I think this would work.

/etc/init/gdm.conf


# gdm - GNOME Display Manager
#
# The display manager service manages the X servers running on the
# system, providing login and auto-login services

description "GNOME Display Manager"
author "William Jon McCann <mccann@jhu.edu>"

start on (filesystem
and started dbus
and (graphics-device-added fb0 PRIMARY_DEVICE_FOR_DISPLAY=1
or drm-device-added card0 PRIMARY_DEVICE_FOR_DISPLAY=1
or stopped udevtrigger)
and runlevel [245] )
stop on runlevel [016]


I believe the correct place to change the default runlevel for 10.04 is /etc/init/rc-sysinit.conf

[sisco311]

Hi

I have installed 10.04 LTS server and after that x-window-system-core, gnome-core and gdm. Now it boots to a gui in runlevel 2.

1. How can I set the default runlevel to 3?

and

2. boot into runlevel 3 without a gui?

Run levels are still emulated, but are kinda deprecated...

In order to boot without starting the display manager use the text kernel parameter.

Edit /etc/default/grub and add the text option to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT variable:


...
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash text"
...

Remove the quiet option to make the boot process verbose.

Removing the splash option to disable the splash screen.

i.e.


...
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text"
...


Then run:

sudo update-grub
to generate a new grub.cfg file.

Or you could create a new text mode grub entry, but that's a little bit trickier. :)

backup the /etc/grub.d/10_linux file:

sudo cp /etc/grub.d/10_linux{,-backup}
sudo chmod -x /etc/grub.d/10_linux-backup

open it for editing:

gksu gedit /etc/grub.d/10_linux

scroll down to the linux_entry function (line ~64), and edit it to look like this:


...
linux_entry ()
{
os="$1"
version="$2"
recovery="$3"
args="$4"

if [ "${recovery}" = "text" ]; then
title="$(gettext_quoted "%s, with Linux %s (text mode)")"
elif ${recovery} ; then
title="$(gettext_quoted "%s, with Linux %s (recovery mode)")"
else
title="$(gettext_quoted "%s, with Linux %s")"
fi
printf "menuentry '${title}' ${CLASS} {\n" "${os}" "${version}"
cat << EOF
...

scroll down to the end of file and call the function with the text parameter:


...
linux_entry "${OS}" "${version}" "text" \
"text ${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX}"


linux_entry "${OS}" "${version}" false \
"${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_EXTRA} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT}" \
quiet

if [ "x${GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_RECOVERY}" != "xtrue" ]; then
linux_entry "${OS}" "${version}" true \
"single ${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX}"
fi

list=`echo $list | tr ' ' '\n' | grep -vx $linux | tr '\n' ' '`
done


generate a new grub.cfg file:

sudo update-grub

check out the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and see if the new menu entry is generated.


If something went wrong, restore the original settings:

sudo mv /etc/grub.d/10_linux{-backup,}
sudo chmod +x /etc/grub.d/10_linux

sudo update-grub

[.09.]

I used the text option in grub and it worked, thanks :cool:

[dwaltz]

Thanks I found this thread still useful today, I used the long solution, and at step iii. I had to chang line 96 to read like:

if [ "${recovery}" != "text" -a ! ${recovery} ] ; then
this in Ubuntu 12, don't know if this script changed from 10 to 12.

At step iv. instead I placed the "text" mode as second option.

regards