Neversummer 4 Forum Archive

Is there any way to configure my boot loader to boot straight to command prompt instead of GUI? When this happens, I need to make sure the runlevel has networking support.

If so, could you point me to some directions?

I tried to edit GRUB while it was booting, it's all a foreign language to me.

Any help would be appreciated!

gah. no machine to look at, but from memory:
edit /etc/inittab and change the default runlevel from 3 to 2.

edit: on second thoughts don't do that 'cos it's like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. wait for someone that runs Ubuntu to tell you how to do it...

in /etc/inittab, find this line:
id:5:initdefault:

5 her is runlvl 5(graphical login) changing this to 3 will give you the same boot without grphical login. Runlvl 3 is what you usualy would use on a server where no gui is needed. The line should now look like this:
id:3:initdefault:

Okay, thanks! Trying it now.

There is no inittab in /etc...

I dunno what the issue is. There's a init.d but it's a folder .. hmm.

For most distro's those answers would have been perfect, Ubuntu however switched to a boot system called Upstart (It sucks IMHO). It is an event based init system that I have yet to figure out and the documentation for is junk.

You can try asking in the Ubuntu help channel irc.freenode.net #ubuntu, however your probably going to get the same answer.

I spent a few days on this a month or two ago and couldnt make heads or tails of it. If you do figure out how to set it up in any other way that going into single user mode (rescue mode) let me know. With Debian, RH, Fedora ... pretty much any other distro its easy to do. Ubuntu though seems to want to make it harder to tinker under the hood while making it easier to use for the normal user.

\Unfortunately, I have recieved the same answer from the Ubuntu forums. I dunno what I'm going to do.

Someone said to edit the menu.lst and he had success in doing this so that is next step.

the /boot/grub/menu.lst as far as I know will only allow you to pass the argument to go into single (rescue) user mode.

Not to mention, messing with that file and not knowing exactly what your doing can turn your system into an unbootable boat anchor. It is recoverable, but a serious pain in the back side to do it.

If you are going to mess with it, the safest way is to "escape" into the grub list when your booting up. then use e for edit, and edit the boot command in place. This wont permenantly save the changes, rather only pass them for that one boot. Next reboot and it will be back to the way it was.

In this fashion, if you hose the boot command you dont hose the system. Once you get it doing what you want .. THEN go in and edit the menu.lst.

I found a solution!

You simply disable the startup script for gdm.

To disable: To enable: ![/code]

Well done!!!.