How to kill X server without rendering computer insert

I have a Ubuntu 12.04 box with a new Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 video card. I can't install the linux video driver for that card, because the installer stops when it detects an X server active, & refuses to proceed. If I use "dmlight stop" (or something near that, I forget the syntax) it kills X, but in replacement I have a monochrome blank screen. No console, no nothing, so I can't start anything, let alone the video card driver installer. I also monkeyed with fstab & told it to boot to runlevel 1 (I think it was---it's supposed to be console only) and my machine looked up so badly I had to reinstall Ubuntu to get control of it again.

Any wisdom about killing X (or booting into non-X situation) so I can do the video card install?

Thanks for the help.

press ctrl+alt+F1

login & then kill X ;)

If you hold down shift at boot time, you should get a boot menu; one of the options should be "recovery mode". Select this and you'll boot to a shell with no X11 running.

Thanks for the tip. That fixed things so I could get my Nvidia card device driver installed.

Regards,
Will Grove

For further reference, the proper way to stop X without going all the way to single-user mode is

Code:

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sudo service gdm stop

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