Switching ubuntu boot from graphics to text mode.

This one has always puzzled me and make me go round and round few times now on all my new VM's, so I decided to note down what I did this time.

To Change the Graphic boot to Text mode on startup all you need to do is modify your /etc/init/.cfg file.

In my case I was trying to do this with gdm.cfg based on many google results however, I missed a crucial point that I had selected another Display Manager lightdm. After trying few things I finally realized the mistake. So here is the snippet from /etc/init/lightdm.cfg (This should be same for gdm as well in gdm.cfg):

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

stop on runlevel [016]

You can change the runlevel in

stop on runlevel [016]

but I didn't find it necessary, just changing it in start on section did the job.

gdm vs xdm surprise on my Ubuntu 8.04.1 x86_64 machine.

While looking at some cleanup in Synaptic package manger for unused packages I thought of seeing what difference it would make to GNOME if I use xdm instead of gdm. Well
1. I saw not so nice startup text display (I am fine with it though)
2. I saw fine black and white mesh screen which is awfully painful for graphical login with thick text box for entering login/password. (I even managed to stand this one)
3. Login was much swift than previous into GNOME. (so it was worth the switch for now)/
4. I could see all the menus icons taskbar etc. so it's good sign.
5. Only thing I missed was shutdown option in GNOME System->Quit (or from the quit button).

The biggest surprise was without anything running I would normally see most of my 4 GB RAM was always in use with GDM which is now drop down to around 700-900Mb even now with Thunderbird, pidgin, firefox on it is at 1.1GB I think to me this is big improvement. (there may some others limitations but for now I thik I will see how it works for me). I past I always saw my system eating away into the 6 GB swap without running much of the applications.

I think I will also try another not so heavy window managers like Enlightenment etc.

The part of inspiration to think about it is DIY I am doing with my homemade Digital Picture Frame out of P-II for which I am trying various linux options after staring the project 2 years back and shelved it with initial success with Windows.

I wish to get more than a digital picture frame out of the DIY possibly low-end media player controllable via remote using lirc. (sounds too ambitious but will give it a go)