I personally dont like display managers much. Here is the short version of how to boot to command line only.
First, open any terminal of your choice and then type:
systemsettings
One you are in the systemsettings screen, click on:
system services
Then click on:
Administrator Mode
Immediately followed by your sudo/root password. From the 'Run Level' drop down box click on:
Multiuser Mode(3)
You'll want to edit the services you want to start at boot time when the system boots into Multiuser Mode. We specifically want to disable the following:
KDM at boot and X11-common
Then click on 'Close'
Now we need to tell the system to always boot to Multiuser Mode (3) (also known as runlevel 3)
As root user, or sudo, you need to edit your /etc/inittab file. You'll want to change the following line:
id:5:initdefault:
To make it look like this:
id:3:initdefault:
Next we need to tell the command 'startx' what exactly we want started when we issue the command. You'll want to do the following as normal user:
touch ~/.xinitrc
Once again choose your favorite text editor and as normal user run it and edit the newly created ~/.xinitrc file. Below is an example of what is in my ~/.xinitrc file so that when I issue the 'startx' command E17 the window manager and the app gkrellm start up automatically:
#!/usr/bin/env bash /usr/bin/gkrellm & #this should start E17 exec /usr/local/bin/enlightenment_start
If you need help writing your ~/.xinitrc file there is a great how-to found here : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CustomXSession?highlight=%28startx%29
At this point you should be able to move to runlevel 3. To do so, perform the following:
sudo init 3
Enter your sudo/root password and then type:
startx
You "should" be booting into the window manager you defined in your ~/.xinitrc file.
Another way of removing the GUI login is to issue the following command:
sudo update-rc.d -f kdm remove
To get the GUI login back you can issue the following command:
update-rc.d kdm defaults