how to stop the xorg X server while in terminal console, what command ?

james2b · 12-12-2011, 02:54 AM

I have the Ubuntu 11.10 with a nvidia driver issue, and so to put in the newer nvidia driver by direct manual method, it says to exit the X server before I run the downloaded file from the nvidia web site. Please tell me the correct command to use to terminate or exit out of the X server when in run level 3 text mode console. Also it must be mounted read write, not read only

Poenikatu · 12-12-2011, 03:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by james2b

I have the Ubuntu 11.10 with a nvidia driver issue, and so to put in the newer nvidia driver by direct manual method, it says to exit the X server before I run the downloaded file from the nvidia web site. Please tell me the correct command to use to terminate or exit out of the X server when in run level 3 text mode console. Also it must be mounted read write, not read only

Try issuing "ps ax|less" and get the process ID for
X. Then issue the command "kill process-ID".

Cedrik · 12-12-2011, 04:01 AM

There are commands to exit windows manager gracefully, eg for Xfce:

Code:

xfce4-session-logout --display :0.0

TobiSGD · 12-12-2011, 12:53 PM

At first, The default Ubuntu runlevel is 2, not 3, and switching to any other runlevel (except of course 0,1 and 6) will do exactly nothing, all the runlevels from 2-5 are the same.
To exit from X you have to stop the display manager (I think it is LightDM in 11.10), so the command would be something like

Code:

sudo service lightdm stop

james2b · 12-12-2011, 06:54 PM

Okay thanks for that, and I did just edit the kernel boot options while at the grub boot loader to boot into text mode, that may be run level 3? Used; nosplash --verbose text, and removed the other default options at the end of that main line for the kernel while in grub.

Cedrik · 12-12-2011, 07:29 PM

Usually you set default runlevel number in /etc/inittab
The grub boot option is just for seeing text while booting instead of graphics I suppose

TobiSGD · 12-12-2011, 10:52 PM

As I already have stated above, runlevels 2-5 are the same on Ubuntu. If you want to boot into text mode you either have to boot into runlevel 1 (single user mode) or you have to change the startup services for one of the other runlevels and boot into that. I don't know how to do that with Ubuntu's upstart system, but I think Google can help here.

james2b · 12-14-2011, 02:57 PM

I did finally have it booted with X server not running and not read only file system. Then the nvidia driver 290.10 went through the install process partially but failed to complete due to the kernel module for nvidia not compiled since the needed kernel source and headers files are not in my system. So I just re-installed the older nvidia-173 version which does function fine, thanks for the help.