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.
07 Answers
To do that just follow this:
Go to CLI mode:
CTRL + ALT + F1
Stop GUI service on Ubuntu:
sudo service lightdm stopor if you're using a version of Ubuntu before 11.10, run:
sudo service gdm stop
Use
sudo service gdm stopto stop the GUI and
sudo service gdm startto start it again
3If 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="" to 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.
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
1I 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.
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.
to stop GUI from auto-loading
sudo systemctl set-default graphicalto start it again:
sudo systemctl set-default graphical
