shutdown graphics

[Geoff_Lane]

Folks,

I need to copy a 250GB hard drive using dd, I would like to shut down all graphics and just work from the command line so that the system is running light.

I assume Ctrl-Alt-F1 would still have the desktop running on Ctrl-Alt-F7 so any tips appreciated.

Geffers

[deadflowr]

On Ubuntu switch to tty1 and run

sudo stop lightdm
for 14.04.(I think it works for 13.10 as well)
For 12.04 run

sudo service lightdm stop

[Geoff_Lane]

On Ubuntu switch to tty1 and run

sudo stop lightdm
for 14.04.(I think it works for 13.10 as well)
For 12.04 run

sudo service lightdm stop

Thanks, that was really useful.

Geffers

[grahammechanical]

You can also boot into recovery mode. That will give access to a Linux command line before the Gnome/Ubuntu desktop environment has loaded.

[deadflowr]

You can also boot into recovery mode. That will give access to a Linux command line before the Gnome/Ubuntu desktop environment has loaded.

Just remember to remount it read/write.
(If you need to do anything.)
Easy way is to enable Networking first.
(This automatically resets it read/write)
or run

mount -o rw,remount /
from the root shell.