17.4. Booting to Text Mode on Debian

Problem

Your Debian system boots X Windows automatically, probably with Gnome Display Manager (GDM), K Display Manager (KDM), or X Display Manager (XDM). But, Debian does not install with both text and graphical runlevels already configured like Red Hat; runlevels 2–5 by default are all the same. Because you chose a graphical login during installation, runlevels 2–5 all boot to a graphical login. How do you configure it to boot to a text-only session?

Solution

First, you need to know which display manager the system is using. Then, remove it from the appropriate runlevels. To see which one is running:

	$ ps ax | grep dm
	  537 |         S       0:00 /usr/bin/gdm
	  544 |         S<   0:10 /usr/X11R6/bin/X :0 -dpi 100 -nolisten tcp vt7 -auth /var/
	lib/gdm/A:0-PbCLdj

This tells us that GDM, the Gnome Display Manager, is running. First, remove it from all runlevels:

	# update-rc.d -f gdm remove
	update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/gdm exists during rc.d purge (continuing)
	 Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/gdm ...
	   /etc/rc0.d/K01gdm
	   /etc/rc1.d/K01gdm
	   /etc/rc2.d/S99gdm
	   /etc/rc3.d/S99gdm
	   /etc/rc4.d/S99gdm
	   /etc/rc5.d/S99gdm
	   /etc/rc6.d/K01gdm

Next, have GDM start on runlevel 5, and stop on all the others:

	# update-rc.d gdm start 99 5 . stop 01 0 1 2 3 4 6 .
	 Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/gdm ...
	   /etc/rc0.d/K01gdm -> ../init.d/gdm
	   /etc/rc1.d/K01gdm -> ../init.d/gdm
	   /etc/rc2.d/K01gdm -> ../init.d/gdm
	   /etc/rc3.d/K01gdm -> ../init.d/gdm
	   /etc/rc4.d/K01gdm -> ../init.d/gdm
	   /etc/rc6.d/K01gdm -> ../init.d/gdm
	   /etc/rc5.d/S99gdm -> ../init.d/gdm

Now, edit /etc/inittab to set the default runlevel so that the system boots into text mode. Debian's default runlevel is 2, so why not stick with tradition:

	# The default runlevel.
	id:2:initdefault:

Now refer to Recipe 17.2 or Recipe 17.3 to finish setting up your server.

Discussion

Booting to text mode still gives you the option to run X Windows when you want; simply run the startx command on the server to start up X Windows. You won't see an X session over the serial line—this only makes sense when you want an X session on an attached monitor, or you are running remote X clients from the server.

update-rc.d is the Debian command for editing runlevels. The -f flag means "force removal of symlinks even if /etc/init.d/<name> still exists." Runlevels are simply big batches of symlinks, which you can see in the /etc/rc*.d directories. This preserves the startup script in /etc/init.d, which you definitely do not want to delete. If you're feeling nervous, run update-rc.d-f-n<foo> first to do a dry run, the -n switch meaning "not really."

See Also