How to get rid of the GUI on the log-in screen?

[Shepherd of Wolves]

Hi, as of about an hour ago I am running Ubuntu 12.04LTS 64bit. For the past year or so I've been running Backtrack as root but I wanted something a bit more stable, but I'm missing some of my geeky amenities such as the lack of a GUI on the log in screen. On Backtrack you enter your username & password and then type 'startx' to, well...start X.
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of that GUI by default and what command I use, if it isn't still 'startx', to start the GUI for everything else?

[cariboo]

If you remove lightdm, you should be able to login from the prompt, and start X manually.

[sisco311]

You can disable lightdm (the desktop manager) with the following command:

echo 'manual' | sudo tee /etc/init/lightdm.override

If you want to re-enable the DM, then simply delete /etc/init/lightdm.override

startx

should start the X session.

[Shepherd of Wolves]

Okay, that makes sense, but are there going to be any bad side effects after I log in & startx since I'd be permanently removing lightdm?

[Shepherd of Wolves]

Oh hey, sisco, you just answered my question. thanks

[Shepherd of Wolves]

Awesomesauce!
That got me in as root for a minute so I could change some permissions for some files I dumped in the wrong place.
Lightdm also apparently runs the panels in 12.04 so I'm riding on the back of the terminal at the moment. It's okay though I hated those panels, although I'd like some more. Do you guys know what panel system backtrack used? It's the same as linux mint, although with mint I only ever got it to enable on at a time...

[newb85]

Awesomesauce!
That got me in as root for a minute so I could change some permissions for some files I dumped in the wrong place.
Lightdm also apparently runs the panels in 12.04 so I'm riding on the back of the terminal at the moment. It's okay though I hated those panels, although I'd like some more. Do you guys know what panel system backtrack used? It's the same as linux mint, although with mint I only ever got it to enable on at a time...

First off, couldn't you have changed those permissions using sudo, instead of logging in as root (which is generally strongly discouraged)?

I've never used BackTrack, but the screenshot on their Wiki looks like Gnome 2. I think the easiest way to get something like that is to install gnome fallback. Unfortunately, the specific package to install for gnome fallback differs based on which release you're running, and I don't remember off the top of my head which one is for 12.04, so I'll leave that research as an excercise for the reader/another poster.

[Shepherd of Wolves]

Once I'd gotten rid of the GUI it was easier just to get into root. I've spent enough time as root to know how to keep from doing any damage. Regardless though, I've started spending most of my time as a normal user.

I've got another problem, by the way. I can't seem to install or update anything. I've been trying to download the Ubuntu restricted extras, Ubuntu/Gnome Tweaks, and other basic stuff but I keep getting the repetitive "Failed to Fetch...Cannot Connect to [insert server here]". My connection is fine, I pinged the IPs it gave me each time & all returned 100%.
Anyone know what should be done here? Possibly because I just installed the OS, have I forgotten to do something?

[cwsnyder]

Open a terminal and try these:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Are there any additional errors reported? You do know you must install as root or use sudo?

[Shepherd of Wolves]

Those are exactly what I've been trying. And of course I know I need root permissions, I'm not quite that big of a noob.

This is sort of in the middle. There's a lot more Err lines above the first one and many more Failed to Fetch lines after the last.

Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe Translation-en
Unable to connect to us.archive.ubuntu.com:http: [IP: 91.189.91.15 80]
Fetched 702 kB in 12s (57.1 kB/s)
W: GPG error: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 40976EAF437D05B5 Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key <ftpmaster@ubuntu.com>
W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/...source/Sources Unable to connect to us.archive.ubuntu.com:http: [IP: 91.189.91.15 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/p...source/Sources Could not connect to ppa.launchpad.net:80 (91.189.95.83). - connect (111: Connection refused)

W: Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dist...nslation-en_US Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

apt-get update looks like its going to work up until...

Fetched 651 kB in 1min 4s (10.2 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 40976EAF437D05B5 Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key <ftpmaster@ubuntu.com>

W: GPG error: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 40976EAF437D05B5 Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key <ftpmaster@ubuntu.com>
W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/...pdates/Release

W: Failed to fetch gzip:/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_so urce_Sources Encountered a section with no Package: header

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/p...source/Sources 400 Bad Request

W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.