Ubuntu: How do I boot into single-user mode from GRUB?
Channel: Roel Van de Paar
Date: 2019-06-17

Ubuntu: How do I boot into single-user mode from GRUB?


The Question: After changing a few lines in xorg.conf, I can no longer boot Ubuntu (I assume
it breaks when trying to load up X), so I need a way to boot into a single-user
mode. However, there seems to be zero guides on the Internet how to do it,
because they all assume I can actually edit files on my computer, and I
obviously can't.
So how do I load Ubuntu in single-user mode?
When I turned off splash, I figured out the problem: whenever Ubuntu can't load
X server due to some error, it switches to tty1 and waits for the prompt, but
doesn't turn off the splash.

Solutions Sample (Please watch the whole video to see all solutions, in order of how many people found them helpful):

== This solution helped 14 people ==
Good question! When booting the machine hold down the left shift key. For more
info follow this:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecoveryMode

== This solution helped 90 people ==
To boot into single user mode you edit the boot instructions for the GRUB menu
entry you wish to boot and add the kernel parameter/option single. Brief
instructions for how to do this are below.
 1. Hold down the left Shift key while rebooting to bring up GRUB menu
 2. Select (highlight) the GRUB boot menu entry you wish to use.
 3. Press e to edit the GRUB boot commands for the selected boot menu entry.
 4. Look near the bottom of the list of commands for lines similar to
 linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic root=UUID=bc6f8146-1523-46a6-8b6a-
 64b819ccf2b7 ro quiet splash
 initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-24-generic
 5. Change the middle line in (4) by adding the kernel boot parameter single
 to the end of the line (i.e. after ro quiet splash).
 For this example you would change:
 6a-64b819ccf2b7 ro quiet splash
 to
 6a-64b819ccf2b7 ro quiet splash single
 6. Press either Ctrl+X or F10 to boot using these kernel options.
Note: These changes are not persistent. Any change to the kernel boot options
made this way will only affect the next boot and only if you start that boot by
pressing either Ctrl+X or F10 while still in GRUB edit mode.

== This solution helped 5 people ==
Not sure why the instruction is not permanent.
To make it permanent edit "/etc/default/grub"
pico /etc/default/grub
Make the same changes...
update-grub
I changed the line "ro quiet splash "
to "ro text single " and i start GUI with
startx

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