Howto Boot debian in text mode instead of graphical mode (GUI)

Aug 292007

This is very useful tip for all debian users

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

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http://m4z3.de Mathias Bernhardt

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.
http://robots.org.uk/ Sam Morris

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.
http://guti.bitacoras.com Guti

Very nice article.
mzilikazi

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.
Ken

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
Delian Krustev

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 ..
acohen36

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
valsj

nice. very helpful
Stan

Why not just:
apt-get remove gdm
???

Then it is gone for good!
http://ayekat.wordpress.com/ Ayekat

Why not just:
apt-get remove gdm
???

Then it is gone for good!

Sorry, I’m probably just some newbie speaking bad english, but everytime I remove Gnome, GDM or even just Epiphany, Debian tells me that a huuuuuuuuge amount of programs aren’t needed anymore.

And then, if I type apt-get autoremove, Debian starts removing every GUI component of the system.
Wolf

Hi All, but really I’m confised reading all that post on this thread, was looking to only remove permanently the gui start-up from my Debian and get a lot of misleading information. Even after trying undate-rc.d gdm remove I get the following output: update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/gdm exist during rc.d purge (use -f to force)

So what’s that?
Sure I have to reboot to see what happen after my first attempt to get gui startup out.
Maybe after someone will give a short and clear statement to this post, other can really get usefully info.

Thanks
Marco

I tried to run “update-rc.d -f gdm remove” as root but didn’t have any effect, on a fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit: the computer still boot in graphical mode.
CrazyA

Marco: I had exactly the same thing. For now, I’ll just deal with it and leave it eating up resources while it shouldn’t…
Marco

CrazyA, I solved it.

You need to open the /etc/default/grub file, locate the following line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

and change it to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash text"

and don’t forget to run ‘update-grub’ afterwards to update.
CrazyA

Marco: Thank you very much. I finaly got back home so I could try it, and it works like a charm!
Matt

I had the same trouble as you marco. I’ve removed gdm like it’s said here but at reboot … still gnome launched -.-
thank you marco for the solution

this topic should be updated by admin ^^
Dave Oliphant

This worked for me; I have been searching on the web for several days on how to boot up linux mint 9 x64 into a cli text mode but nothing has worked. But this worked!!!!
How groovy is that!?!?

Thanks a bunch for something that actually worked.

Dave
rtoledo2002

the post above that talks about

mv /etc/rc2.d/S30gdm /etc/rc2.d/K70gdm

needs to be updated for debian 64 6.0.1 TO

mv /etc/rc2.d/S22gdm3 /etc/rc2.d/K70gdm

and this worked for me tody with a fresh install in Oracle’s VM 05-22-2011
RJB

It looks like this is long outdated. Probably this should be updated by admin.

The following is not helpful advice for those who want to keep gdm, but not autostart it on boot, but is useful for those installing Debian for the first time:

Use the basic install. Don’t install X or any GUI applications on your initial Debian installation.
Don’t install GDM or gnome.

Install only the GUI stuff you will actually use and start anything you need to start by making entries in your user .xinitrc file, then use ‘startx’ to launch.

If want gnome and gdm, but don’t want it to autostart, then the /etc/rcX files are the place to go. Do some exploration in each new version of Debian (or Ubuntu, or Linux Mint…) to find out where these are.
Matt Gilbert

I’m a long time slack user, but I thought I’d give debian a try on a spare machine I have. I installed Debian 6.0.3 and I found this page and did the update-rc.d -f gdm3 remove thing and it worked fine and rebooted to CLI no problem, and startx starts the GUI no problem. See the man update-rc.d page Note that I used gdm3 and not gdm, as there is no /usr/bin/gdm but there is a /usr/gdm3 so that did it. Before that I battled with getting rid of Grub and it’s EFI and UUID crazy anti-bios stuff did a proper /etc/fstab and replaced GRUB with LILO, This may turn out to be a pretty decent system after all.
sae

I have installing gui on ubuntu server 11.10 ,
I put correct password,but can’t access to my server, how to fix it.
Eu2200

It worked for me like Marco said on Debian 6.0.4

Open the /etc/default/grub file, locate the following line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet”

and change it to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet text”

and don’t forget to run ‘update-grub’ afterwards to update.

[
#update-rc.d -f gdm remove
didn't work for me
]
Greg Tari

I’ve came here 5 times so far for different systems because remembering this isn’t on my top priority.. anyway I scroll straight down to your post because gdm remove doesn’t work for anything on any machine thanks!
nico

if you change the number after S to 22, shouldnt you also change the number after K to 78 ?
see man update-rc.d