Boot linux in console mode

How to Boot Ubuntu 20.04 into Text / Command Console

Need to do some work in the black & white command line console? You can press Ctrl+Alt+F3 on keyboard to switch from the current session to tty3 text console, and switch back via Ctrl+Alt+F2.

From the startup grub boot-loader menu entry, you may select the Advanced Options > recovery mode > Drop to root shell prompt to get into text mode. However you need to run command mount -o rw,remount / to get file system write permission.

If you want to make Ubuntu automatically boot into the text mode, configure grub settings by doing following steps one by one:

1. Open terminal and run command to backup the configuration file:

2. Edit the configuration file via command:

When the file opens, do:

• disable GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=»quiet splash» by adding # at the beginning.
• set GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=»» to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=»text»
• remove # from the line GRUB_TERMINAL=»console» to disable graphical terminal.

3. Save the file and apply changes by running command:

4. One more command is required as Ubuntu now uses systemd:

How to Restore:

To restore changes, simply move back the backup file via command:

And run sudo update-grub to apply change.

Also change the setting back in systemd via command:

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How To Boot To Console (Text) Mode Using Debian / Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux / Manjaro And More

This article explains how to boot a Linux distribution like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux / Manjaro, etc., in console mode, either temporarily or permanently.

The instructions in this article should work with any Linux distribution that uses systemd (for the permanent mode below) and GNU GRUB (for the temporary mode), but I personally only tried this with Debian, Ubuntu, Manjaro and Fedora.

Case A. Temporary booting to console mode (text mode)

Using these instructions, your computer will boot to console only for the current boot. After restarting the computer it will boot normally, so these changes are temporary.

1. To temporarily boot to console mode (tty), start your computer and immediately after the BIOS / UEFI splash screen, press and hold the Shift (BIOS), or press the Esc (UEFI) key repeatedly, to access the GRUB menu.

2. Once you see the GNU GRUB screen, with the first entry from the menu selected, press the e key. This allows you to edit the kernel parameters before booting.

Look for the line that begins with linux (use the Up / Down / Left / Right arrow keys to navigate); vmlinuz should also be on the same line. At the end of this line (you can place the cursor using the arrow keys at the beginning of the line, then press the End key to move the cursor to the end of that line) add a space followed by the number 3 . Don’t change anything else.

This 3 represents the multi-user.target systemd target which is mapped to the old, now obsolete runlevel 2, 3 and 4 (used to start and stop groups of services). For example the old runlevel 5 is mapped to the systemd graphical.target and using this starts. you’ve guessed it, the graphical (GUI) target. For more on systemd targets see this page.

Example #1. This is how the line beginning with «linux» looks like for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (it doesn’t have to be identical for you, it’s just so you get an idea):

And this is how the line beginning with «linux» looks after adding the 3 at the end:

Example #2. This is how the line beginning with «linux» looks for Fedora 31 (it’s not identical for you, it’s just so you get an idea):

And this is how it looks after adding the 3 at the end of the line:

3. After doing this, press Ctrl + x or F10 to boot to console (text) mode.

To reboot your system while in console mode, use the reboot command ( sudo reboot ).

It’s worth noting that Debian and Ubuntu based Linux distributions (including Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, Zorin OS, etc.) come with a recovery mode built into the GNU GRUB menu. So in case you use Debian / Ubuntu or some Linux distribution based on it, get to the GNU GRUB menu as explained above, then select Advanced options , and from the new list that comes up select the first entry that ends with (recovery mode) . Select this entry and hit the Enter key, and you’ll get to a menu that, among others, allows you to drop to root shell prompt — when selected, your system continues to boot to the command line and not a graphical user interface, allowing you to login using your root password. This allows access to the filesystem in read-only mode; for read-write use mount -o remount,rw / . Use this for example to reset a lost user / administrator password on Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, etc.

Case B. Permanently booting to text mode (console mode)

Getting your Linux system to always boot to console (text / tty) mode is as easy as running a single command:

This command sets text mode as the default systemd target (runlevel as it used to be called before systemd). After running this command, reboot your system and it will automatically boot to console / text mode every time.

Don’t know the current systemd target used on your system? Use this command, which will show the currently set target:

Extra tip: using this, your Linux computer will boot to tty1 (text-only virtual console). You can switch to a different virtual console by using Ctrl + Alt + F2 for tty2, Ctrl + Alt + F3 for tty3, and so on until tty7.

In case you want to undo this change and get your Linux system to boot to the default graphical mode, use:

After using this command, reboot ( sudo reboot ) and your system should start in graphical mode, as it was by default.

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How do I boot into the console and then launch the Ubuntu desktop from it?

At the Ubuntu login page I have to hit Ctrl + Alt + F1 to be able to login as an user using the command line.

But how do I get to the command line first and then start the Ubuntu desktop from it?

4 Answers 4

To return to the login screen

Press Ctrl + Alt + F7 to return to the login screen. You can exit your terminal session on tty1 by typing exit before you do that.

Doing startx — :1 will start another X session under terminal tty1, logging you in directly (use :2, etc. for even more displays). Note that logging into multiple sessions as the same user is not recommended and could lead to system instability.

To skip the login screen completely, boot into the console and then start the GUI, you must modify GRUB:

• sudo nano /etc/default/grub
• Change line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=»quiet splash» to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=»text»
• Ctrl — X , press Y and then Enter to save and exit.
• sudo update-grub
• Reboot and you should come up directly in tty1 — no need to press Ctrl-Alt-F1.
• Login, and then startx to boot into the default desktop, or
  • unity for Unity
  • unity-2d-shell for Unity 2D
  • gnome-shell for Gnome
  • sudo service lightdm start to get the login screen (if you fix it 🙂

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Start linux in text mode

I know that it ask so many time, how to boot Linux in text mode; but all solution that i got is on installed Linux system, not on fresh system.

Is there any way to load any Linux in live mode in text mode or console mode, not any service related to X must be started.

Are there is any kernel option or parameter that don’t touch X system and start the system in text mode, in Debian based system like Kali ?

I want to start Kali in live mode on window machine, but in text mode, how it can be ?

3 Answers 3

Kali linux will start X on every runlevel, so appending single to the kernel parameters won’t change much. In Kali you can’t even login withouth GDM. But once you logged in, you can switch to one of the virtual terminals with Ctrl + Alt + F1 or Ctrl + Alt + F2 . Then you can hit killall gdm3 which will leave you with virtual terminals only.

I don’t understand what you mean by «installed Linux system, not on fresh system.»

Debian has an option to boot in recovery mode ( single option to the kernel). If this is available, it should show up in the grub menu. If it is not available in the menu, you could always add it. This is how it looks on my system.

The relevant line is

EDIT: If you want to a live CD to boot up in text mode, check out Grml. It has an option for lots of things, including booting in text mode. Other live CDs do as well, including Knoppix, but Grml is particularly flexible and full-featured. Note, to boot Knoppix in text mode, enter knoppix 2 at the prompt.

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Thread: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

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How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

I`d like to add a new option to the menu.lst so that I can boot to ubuntu in console mode without loading the X. Does anyone know how to do this?

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

run this command in the terminal

then scroll all the way to the bottom and paste it under the rest (or perhaps in the middle or the top, wherever you want it to come up in the grub menu)

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

The code I quoted at the end is the default option in menu.lst. What I want to is to add a new option(or profile, if you will) to the menu.lst which would let me boot to ubuntu without gdm. So it will just be command line interface. You can do this after booting to the normal ubuntu with CTRL+Alt+F1. All I want to do is booting directly to the console without spending time on loading gdm.

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

I guess I wasn’t clear enough.

The code I quoted at the end is the default option in menu.lst. What I want to is to add a new option(or profile, if you will) to the menu.lst which would let me boot to ubuntu without gdm. So it will just be command line interface. You can do this after booting to the normal ubuntu with CTRL+Alt+F1. All I want to do is booting directly to the console without spending time on loading gdm.

It should already be there,it is called recovery mode and is the second selection in the grub menu.

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

Unfortunately, recovery mode is only for «recovery» applications and does not provide the regular command line environment [except for the ‘root shell’, which I don’t like especially in a command line-only interface]

I seek a regular ubuntu boot just without the gdm (so the result is similar to ctrl+alt+f1 after a standart boot)

All the solutions I could find online were basically about uninstalling gdm which I don’t want since I use the GUI normally.

I hoped to add a new option to the grub menu that would boot to such a console mode. If it’s not possible to do it from menu.lst, is there another way to accomplish this?

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

You need to somehow make it boot in runlevel 3. Don’t know how to do that from GRUB. But heres how to change the default run level. http://www.debianadmin.com/debian-an. un-levels.html

Edit Its harder than I thought. In Ubuntu runlevels 2-5 are all the same — that is they all start GDM. Going to have to change one of the runlevels to not start GDM.

Last edited by louieb; July 19th, 2008 at 03:16 AM .

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

Yeah, you can add an option to grub to boot directly in Console mode.
Basically, copy and paste any boot entry which you want. Add ‘ 3’ at end of the ‘kernel’ line in the entry. This will make the ubuntu boot in runlevel 3.

You can make this entry default if you want, by changing the value of default in the menu.lst

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

Ubuntu uses «upstart» rather than the older init system and unfortunately the default startup scripts do not support booting to runlevels other than 2 (default) or S (recovery mode) However it is possible to change the script /etc/event.d/rc-default so that different runlevels can be specified on the kernel command line and recognized at boot time. Here is a blog post that explains it pretty well:
http://caulfield.info/emmet/2008/03/. el-to-ubu.html

I got the idea from the blog author but I use a different modification to /etc/event.d/rc-default on my own system. Here is what I use:

I wrote my rc-default so that a single digit at the end of the kernel command line would boot up in that runlevel, which is how it is done on most other distributions (and also on earlier versions of ubuntu, IIRC dapper was the last to use the old init system)

Note that as Emmet Caulfield states in his blog you must still configure the different runlevels for the services you want and if you want the choice to show up in your grub menu you must modify /boot/grub/menu.lst appropriately. Also, remember that a typo or error in either /etc/event.d/rc-default or in /boot/grub/menu.lst can make your system unbootable. Make sure you know how to boot it up another way and know how to mount the filesystem and edit these files, just in case!

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

there has to be a simpler way somehow.

in ubuntu 8.10 u got a little menu in recovery mode, with xfix, clean, etc. and a link with «root — drop to root shell»

that would be usefull in the future (I wanted to update/upgrade from shell without booting to gdm) but networking didn’t work.

I tried /etc/init.d/networking start but that didn’t work. any ideas on this? how to start at least networking, so you can update/upgrade without gdm?

Re: How to boot to Console Mode as an alternative in GRUB menu

I would like to have a similar ooption available on my server.

I’ve decided to load on Gnome for my colleagues who may find they need to perform admin tasks on the SQL server, and prefer to use the a GUI rather than the command line,

What I would like my system to do is boot into a fully functioning syste, just without the gnome desktop, but with all the other «server» services running.

Then it can just sit there doing is «stuff» without wasting resources (allthough that isn’t exacly a big issue with this server. I’m not entirely sure why they put a top end graphics card in there when they wanted it to be a server. maybee I’ll have to put Beryl and cubes onto the system just for demo purposes — or grab the card and drop it into my works desktop!?).

anyway, if it is in a command line for login that is fine, then all my colleagues would have to do is run if they really want a gui.

I suspect however once they get used to it they will do admin from a laptop hardwired through the spare ethernet card and SSH to the server — or similar.

I’m sure that when I set up my home server on Debian this happened automatically — so I’m sure it is possible.

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