Score:7

How do I stop the GUI (in Kubuntu 21.10)

cn flag

I need to stop the GUI and access a TTY for the NVIDIA drivers. I found this question. However, when I tried sudo service lightdm stop (or the same with gdm), it said this:

$ sudo service lightdm stop
Failed to stop lightdm.service: Unit lightdm.service not loaded.
$ sudo service gdm stop
Failed to stop gdm.service: Unit gdm.service not loaded.

I'd prefer not have to mess with Grub, as I only need to stop the GUI once. So, how do I stop the GUI to use a TTY with no GUI running at all in Kubuntu 21.10?

Note: I know how to access a TTY. But once I'm in the TTY, I need to stop the GUI, as the NVIDIA driver installer wants me to be in a TTY and have the GUI not running.

Score:9
us flag

Kubuntu uses sddm as the display manager. So

sudo service sddm stop

should do it.

Organic Marble avatar
us flag
@valisstillwithMonica fewer letters to type
cn flag
Why not use systemd's commands directly instead of wrapper and run `systemctl stop sddm.service`?
Score:7
cn flag

For me, doing the following (in a TTY) worked to stop the GUI.

$ sudo init 3

After I ran that, I was able to successfully install my NVIDIA GPU driver.

Score:5
zw flag

You can also ask systemd to get into multi-user.target by using below command:

sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target

And after all TTY-based operations get finished jump back to graphical session by

sudo systemctl isolate graphical.target
Score:2
es flag

You don't have to stop the GUI to access a text-only terminal.

CTRL+ALT+F3 gets you to TTY3 CTRL+ALT+F4 gets you to TTY4 ... and so on

HolyBlackCat avatar
cn flag
IIRC the installer for Nvidia drivers will still complain, since the GUI is running in the background.
cocomac avatar
cn flag
Yes, I realize those comments are now-deleted, but I need the GUI not running at all (so completely off, not just in a different TTY) for the NVIDIA GPU drivers.
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