How do I stop GUI?

Question

I need to enter the command line alone with no GUI to install the official NVIDIA drivers. I'm trying to get my computer to work over HDMI and someone on Youtube shows how but you have to be in the Nvidia settings program.

Answer 1

To do that just follow this:

1. Go to CLI mode:

   CTRL + ALT + F1

2. Stop GUI service on Ubuntu:

   sudo service lightdm stop
   

   or if you're using a version of Ubuntu before 11.10, run:

   sudo service gdm stop
   

Answer 2

Use

sudo service gdm stop

to stop the GUI and

sudo service gdm start

to start it again

Answer 3

If your purpose is to temporarily disable GUI - you can stop the lightdm service ( or whichever greeter you're using ) with sudo service lightdm stop (14.04 and earlier) or sudo systemctl stop lightdm (since 15.04) from tty1, as shown by others already.

If your purpose to boot into command line for extended period of time between reboots, you can open /etc/default/grub with the choice of your text editor. I personally use nano, so for me the command would be sudo nano /etc/default/grub. Now, find GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" and replace it with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="text". Or you can create two lines, one commented , one uncommented like so:

#GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="text"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

Once necessary, just uncomment the line for which mode you wanna enter. Upon completing editing the /etc/default/grub file, save it, and run sudo update-grub to make the configurations loaded into the actual grub.cfg file. Reboot, and you should enter the command line directly.

Answer 4

Start by logging out and striking CtrlAltF1, then log on.

On Kubuntu stopping the GUI can be done through sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop. On Ubuntu this will probably be sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop.

Enter your password when prompted.

dm stands for Display Manager, check ls /etc/init.d/ which dm is available when it is not gdm.

To restart it just change stop to start.

You probably automatically change to the GUI, if not strike: CtrlAltF7

Answer 5

I know you are not asking this specifically, but you need to install the nvidia-current driver.

You can do this from a gui. Just run jockey-gtk or search for "Additional Drivers" from the dash. Once it is installed, open Nvidia Settings and go from there.

Answer 6

to stop GUI from auto-loading

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user

to start it again:

sudo systemctl set-default graphical

Answer 7

You could open gnome-terminal and type sudo telinit 1. This would drop you to run level 1(single user mode) and kill the gui services.