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.

1. 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

2. open it for editing:
   

   gksu gedit /etc/grub.d/10_linux

3. 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
   ...

4. 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

5. generate a new grub.cfg file:
   

   sudo update-grub

6. 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

[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