[Todd Madson]

Back when I was suffering with major problems with my G4 someone here helpfully
clued me into a mode where I can exit out of the OS X gui for running command line
Unix style apps.

I need to run something on my G5 sans the gui and was wondering how this was
done again - I can't find it in any of my notes.

I seem to remember going into the terminal window and typing a variation on the
exit command to get it to work. But I also remember using a variation on the
shutdown command.

Any help please?

Ideally, is there also a way of going back to GUI mode after one is done or do
you have to shut down and reboot?

[seanc]

There's single user mode, you can boot up holding cmd+option+S I think.
I know in Linux to kill the X server and get to the command line you type init 3 and to get back you type init 5, maybe a sudo in front of those commands. I'll go test them now and update you if they work in OS X.

Edit:

Code:
 -bash: init: command not found

Doesn't work.

[black bear theory]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Back when I was suffering with major problems with my G4 someone here helpfully
clued me into a mode where I can exit out of the OS X gui for running command line
Unix style apps.

I need to run something on my G5 sans the gui and was wondering how this was
done again - I can't find it in any of my notes.

I seem to remember going into the terminal window and typing a variation on the
exit command to get it to work. But I also remember using a variation on the
shutdown command.

Any help please?

Ideally, is there also a way of going back to GUI mode after one is done or do
you have to shut down and reboot?

if your login window is set up so that the user needs to type in their name, you can simply enter ">console" as the username (no password) and it will give you a non-GUI login. once you logout of that terminal session, you will get the GUI login again. i think this is a lot safer than messing with runlevels, esp. if you're not 100% sure what you're doing.

though, you can simply run the command in a terminal window within the GUI. that's the simplest way.