Howto Boot debian in text mode instead of graphical mode (GUI)
Posted by Admin on August 29th, 2007
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You can prevent automatic running of the GUI when you boot your debian machine by disabling your login manager be it KDM, GDM or XDM from running at boot time. To disable the login manager from automatically running at boot up, run the following command as root
#update-rc.d -f gdm remove
Replace gdm with kdm or xdm if they are what you use.
To start X manually, you would then have to login at the command prompt and enter the command startx.
To reset your login manager so that it runs at boot up, do
#update-rc.d -f gdm defaults
August 29th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Hi!
I usualy boot into text-Mode. I also have this line in my .bash_profile:
if [ "$(echo $(who am i)|awk '{print $2}')" = "tty1" ]; then startx;logout;fi
So when i login at the first Terminal then the windowmanager is started via .xinitrc. I like this much more than all the gdm/kdm/xdm stuff because it uses only MY configs and not those of any admin and the x server is started by the user who’s actually using it.
September 9th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I believe this will result in the login manager being enabled again the next time it is upgraded. update-rc.d is *not* for administrators to use — it is only for package maintainer scripts to use to install their startup links.
The correct way to disable a service (such as GDM) from being started in a given runlevel (e.g., 2 which is Debian’s default runlevel) is like so:
mv /etc/rc2.d/S30gdm /etc/rc2.d/K70gdm
Further information can be found in /etc/rc2.d/README.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Very nice article.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
There is a nifty tool called rcconf that can manage run level symlinks for you. Using this tool it is not required to enter each rc*.d dir and manually rename a symlink. It speeds things up a bit.
September 10th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Autologin:
you will want to apt-get remove gdm, kdm, xdm, wdm
and apt-get install rungetty afterwards open /etc/inittab and modify this line 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1 to
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/rungetty tty1 –autologin $user
Now edit and to your /home/$user/.bash_profile
if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [ $(tty) == /dev/tty1 ]; then
while [ 1 == 1 ]
do
startx
sleep 10
done
fi
September 10th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Reading a headline like this could made someone believe debian is more user friendly than ubuntu .. I think it is more appropriate to set the title to:
How stupid should I be to make a machine start directly in X .. especially in debian ?
“The correct way to disable a service (such as GDM) from being started in a given runlevel (e.g., 2 which is Debian’s default runlevel) is like so:
mv /etc/rc2.d/S30gdm /etc/rc2.d/K70gdm
Further information can be found in /etc/rc2.d/README.”
Is it ? May be you should consult the manual page of update-rc.d ..
$ ls /etc | grep “^rc”
rc.local
$
How about /etc/rc2.d not existing at all ?
sysv-rc sucks the big time ..
If you want the states to be preserved you should replace sysv-rc with file-rc . Something everyone should do.
Just my 2 BOFH cents ..
September 24th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
mv /etc/rc2.d/S30gdm /etc/rc2.d/K70gdm
Yep, Sam Morris’s su easy edit works like a charm every time.
Also goes great together with the other ?dm’s kdm and xdm
October 24th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
nice. very helpful
September 7th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Why not just:
apt-get remove gdm
???
Then it is gone for good!