Booting into text mode in 16.04

Is there any way to temporarily disable GUI (X server) when booting an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installation?

There are various guides advising to add text option onto the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub or directly on the linux line in GRUB. These methods work well in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but I always end up in LightDM when trying them in 16.04 LTS.

1 Answer

To boot Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop without X one time, add systemd.unit=multi-user.target to the linux command line in GRUB.

To make this the default, use

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target

To return to default booting into X, use

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

To see the current default target,

sudo systemctl get-default