Linux
10 Dec 2017

Switching to console

How to switched from GUI to console mode:

  • Edit the grub file in /etc/default/ location
    • Press ctrl + alt + T to open terminal
    • Type sudo vi /ect/default/grub and change the following
    • Comment the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" by adding a # at the beginning of the line
    • Change the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="text"
    • Uncomment the line #GRUB_TERMINAL=console by removing # at the beginning

    • The above change will look like

    • vi editor

    • Save the file grub by esc then :wq
    • Now go to terminal and type sudo update-grub
  • Finally change the symlink of Systemd default.target from graphical.target to multi-user.target
    • To do the above type sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target
    • You can conform it by typing sudo systemctl get-default
    • Now reboot the system

How to switch from console mode to GUI mode

  • Edit the grub file again but in reverse way and save the same
  • Update grub by typing sudo update-grub
  • Change the symlink of Systemd by sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target
  • Reboot the system

Benifits of console mode

  • Low RAM usage in console mode(you can see it by htop)

  • Console RAM

  • While in GUI the RAM usage is

  • GUI RAM

  • See how RAM usage is decreased in console mode

    Problems of console mode

  • You can do all the things that you usually do in terminal(you can’t browse, play a video etc)

P.S. - All the above works are tested in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

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