How to boot to command-line interface in Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I want to permanently switch from GUI mode to text mode interface in Ubuntu 16.04.

I tried editing the configuration in /etc/default/grub as follows:

1. Adding # before GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quite splash"
2. Adding "text" in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="text"
3. Removing # before GRUB_TERMINAL=console
4. And at last running update-grub.

But it didn't work. So what should I do to permanently switch to command line/text interface in Ubuntu?

Solution

You need to disable display-manager service since ubuntu 16.04 moved to systemd.

sudo systemctl disable display-manager.service

After a reboot it will boot into text mode. Be cautious however, some hardware driver combinations have dead virtual consoles...if that happens, add nomodeset into your kernel parameter to boot the system, it will boot with default graphic settings from boot loader.

Comments

[tanmay chandane]

Doesn't work! Actually, these things used to work till Ubuntu 14.04 but in later editions (15.10 and 16.04) nothing works.