This simple tutorial will show you how to boot your Ubuntu system directly into command line (text mode or console). If you just want a console for temporary use, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 on keyboard will switch your desktop to tty1.

Update: Thanks to August Karlstrom, before getting started, make a backup by running the command below:

sudo cp -n /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.orig

If for some reason you want to revert to original settings, just run command below in terminal:

sudo mv /etc/default/grub.orig /etc/default/grub && sudo update-grub

To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, follow the below steps:

1. Copy and paste below command into terminal and hit enter:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

This opens Grub boot loader config file with text editor.

2. Do below changes:

• Comment the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”, by adding # at the beginning, which will disable the Ubuntu purple screen.
• Change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”” to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”text”, this makes Ubuntu boot directly into Text Mode.
• Uncomment this line #GRUB_TERMINAL=console, by removing the # at the beginning, this makes Grub Menu into real black & white Text Mode (without background image)

3. After saved the changes, update grub via command:

sudo update-grub

Restart your computer and see the result.