How to disable GUI on boot in 18.04 (Bionic Beaver)?

Question

It appears that sudo systemctl disable gdm3 && sudo systemctl disable gdm do not work in 18.04 to disable the windowing system at bootup. What's the method for doing this now?

Solution 1

To disable GUI on boot, run:

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target

To enable GUI again issue the command:

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

To start Gnome session on a system without a current GUI just execute:

sudo systemctl start gdm3.service

Solution 2

To answer @nurp's comment

The screen is now pretty small in VirtualBox .

1. update your /etc/default/grub accordingly:

   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"
   GRUB_GFXMODE=1152x864x32
   GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1152x864x32
   

2. run sudo update-grub.

   • nomodeset so that the kernel does not attempt changing the resolution set by GRUB.
   • GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX if this variable is set, it controls the video mode in which the Linux kernel starts up, replacing the ‘vga=’ boot option.

References

• https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/html_node/gfxpayload.html

Solution 3

To shutdown gdm once started manually..

You simply execute:

sudo systemctl stop gdm3.service

Comments

[Admin]

You messed up sysctl with systemctl. Please read their man-pages (man 8 sysctl and man systemctl).

[Admin]

LOL, you're right, I did it right on the system, but I simply typed it wrong here. Fixed.

[nurp]

It works but there is one problem. The screen is now pretty small in VirtualBox

[binarymelon]

How do you shutdown gdm once started manually?

[binarymelon]

That's what I would have expected, but it doesn't appear to do anything.

[michid]

Doesn't work for me: 'Failed to set default target: Unit file user-multi.target does not exist.'

[Aido]

@michid That's because you flipped user and multi

[sh37211]

On my system, this produces the text 'The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy, RequiredBy, Also, Alias settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance for template units). This means they are not meant to be enabled using systemctl.' So...?

[huha]

And to query the current setting use sudo systemctl get-default

[Neurotransmitter]

In my case, I needed to find a way to disable GUI after I removed a graphics card from my server. This worked great.