In the current release of Ubuntu upstart is used in place of init, so one should edit the files in /etc/init and not modify any rc scripts (i.e. sysv-rc-conf, rcconf, update-rc are all no-no’s). I can’t speak to previous releases of Ubuntu, so I don’t mean to suggest the original article is incorrect.

Rather than renaming /etc/init/lightdm.conf (or gdm.conf, kdm.conf, etc, as the case may be) you should create /etc/init/lightdm.override and put in it one line with just the word manual – this will prevent upstart from starting the job automatically, and will allow it only to be started manually (hence the “manual” keyword). You should also remove the quiet, splash and vt.handoff=7 kernel parameters from your GRUB configuration – to do so, edit /etc/default/grub, change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash” to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”" and run /usr/sbin/update-grub.

Ubuntu boots into runlevel 2 by default, so in my system I’ve got it setup so that X does not start in runlevel 2, but will in runlevel 3, 4 and 5 (which used to be the case in the days of old) – if you want to take that approach, change your /etc/init/lightdm.override file to:

start on (filesystem
              and runlevel [!026]
              and started dbus
              and (drm-device-added card0 PRIMARY_DEVICE_FOR_DISPLAY=1
                      or stopped udev-fallback-graphics)
stop on runlevel [0126]

In the current release of Ubuntu upstart is used in place of init, so one should edit the files in /etc/init and not modify any rc scripts (i.e. sysv-rc-conf, rcconf, update-rc are all no-no’s). I can’t speak to previous releases of Ubuntu, so I don’t mean to suggest the original article is incorrect.

Rather than renaming /etc/init/lightdm.conf (or gdm.conf, kdm.conf, etc, as the case may be) you should create /etc/init/lightdm.override and put in it one line with just the word

manual

(without the quotes) – this will prevent upstart from starting the job automatically, and will allow it only to be started manually (hence the “manual” keyword). You should also remove the

quiet

,

splash

and

vt.handoff=7

kernel parameters from your GRUB configuration – to do so, edit /etc/default/grub, change

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

and run /usr/sbin/update-grub.

Ubuntu boots into runlevel 2 by default, so in my system I’ve got it setup so that X does not start in runlevel 2, but will in runlevel 3, 4 and 5 (which used to be the case in the days of old) – if you want to take that approach, change your /etc/init/lightdm.override file to:

start on (filesystem
and runlevel [!026]
and started dbus
and (drm-device-added card0 PRIMARY_DEVICE_FOR_DISPLAY=1
or stopped udev-fallback-graphics)

stop on runlevel [0126]

only thing that worked on Natty 11.04

hope I didn’t screw up my system trying all the other stuff I found.

startx gets you in manually once you’ve logged in to that beautiful black and white console

file location: etc/init

rcconf looks like an unfinished product besides sysv-rc-conf.

And because disabling gdm by itself really is not enough, one has to disable usplash also. When you use this same-old default remove -command and later on wanna restore gdm & usplash, you’ll end up with both of them started at the same sequence and this also means no mouse/keyboard while sitting at gdmgreeter login…

Nice enough?

commands for restoring such systems original condition would be:

update-rc.d -f gdm remove
update-rc.d -f usplash remove
update-rc.d -f gdm defaults 30 01
update-rc.d -f usplash defaults 98 02

use sudo, if need be.

sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove

While it may seem to work, that’s just a side effect. This is a packager’s tool, not an administration tool.

A better approach (recommended to me by slangasek, the Ubuntu release manager) is:

mv /etc/rc2.d/S30gdm /etc/rc2.d/disabled-S30gdm
mv /etc/rc2.d/K30gdm /etc/rc2.d/disabled-K30gdm