Ubuntu – Booting into text mode in 16.04

16.04boottext-mode

Is there any way to temporarily disable GUI (X server) when booting an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installation?

There are various guides advising to add text option onto the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub or directly on the linux line in GRUB. These methods work well in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but I always end up in LightDM when trying them in 16.04 LTS.

Best Answer

To boot Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop without X one time, add systemd.unit=multi-user.target to the linux command line in GRUB.

To make this the default, use

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target

To return to default booting into X, use

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

To see the current default target,

sudo systemctl get-default

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Starting Linux in text mode using Grub2

A easy way to achieve what you want is editing the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom and create there a manual entry:

menuentry 'Ubuntu (Text mode)' --class ubuntu {
    recordfail
    insmod gzio
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod ext2
    set root='hd0,msdos1'
    linux   /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro   text
    initrd  /initrd.img
}

of course, you need to replace sda1 and msdos1 with the correct partition (or UUID if you prefer).

After that run sudo update-grub and the new entry should be added at the end of the list.

This only creates a manual entry. If you want a automatic entry for each kernel then you must edit /etc/grub.d/10_linux.

Ubuntu – In Ubuntu 15.04 can’t do graphical log in

Based on the bug report, reported March 21, 2015 Ubuntu 15.04 Xserver does not start or freezes with systemd + lightdm. More detail regarding the impact of this change and how to switch from systemd to upstart and back again is available on this page.

To check to see if your system is using systemd vs. upstart you can test by issuing the command sudo initctl version which will return upstart if upstart is handling init. another useful method is to issue the command dpkg -S /sbin/init which will tell you which package installed it (in my case on 14.04 it's upstart) you can find more very good answers on how to do so from our friends at Unix & Linux. Further detail regarding identifying the init system is also available.

To see if your lightdm works under upstart as designed, you can install the upstart-sysv package, which will remove ubuntu-standard and systemd-sysv (but should not remove anything else. Give the developers a heads up if it does!), and run sudo update-initramfs -u. After that, grub's "Advanced options" menu will have a corresponding "Ubuntu, with Linux ... (systemd)" entry where you can do an one-time boot with systemd.

You can revert back to systemd installing systemd-sysv and ubuntu-standard packages.

Another option appears to be to use gdm under systemd instead of lightdm under upstart.

Further sources (not linked elsewhere):

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/196166/how-to-find-out-if-a-system-uses-sysv-upstart-or-systemd-initsystem

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Starting Linux in text mode using Grub2

Ubuntu – In Ubuntu 15.04 can’t do graphical log in

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