How do I kill the x-server?

Question

Every time I try to kill the x-server,

sudo service lightdm stop

so that I can install the latest Nvidia drivers, I get an error message.

stop: Unknown instance:

What am I doing wrong?

that depends on which DM you are using: sudo service lightdm stop --> Ubuntu with Unity; sudo service kdm stop --> Kubuntu; sudo service gdm stop ..; — Rodislav Moldovan, Jul 18 '13 at 13:02

score 59 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 02 '23 at 11:37

59

Use Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to TTY.
Log in.
Run:
```
sudo service lightdm stop
```
LightDM and Xserver should be stopped now (check with Ctrl+Alt+F7, which is your current Xorg session, it should not show any desktop now).
Do your things.
Run the following command to start lightdm and xorg again:
```
sudo service lightdm start
```

Good Luck!

edited Oct 02 '23 at 11:37

BeastOfCaerbannog

14,585

answered Jul 16 '13 at 13:57

mondjunge

3,296

5

That's exactly what I did except halfway through #3 I was stopped with an error message. – Mysteriousness Jul 16 '13 at 13:59
4

That sounds mysterious ;) my best guess is that lightdm is not runnig at all and you are using some other Display manger... With cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager, you can find out which Display Manager you are currently using, with sudo service --status-all you can find out which services are currently running. Maybe that helps to find out why there is no lightdm instance and what Diplay manager runs instead.. – mondjunge Jul 16 '13 at 14:16
1

For me it was gdm3 rather than lightdm. Also my desktop environment in recent ubuntu was running on the F1 terminal, not F7, so I did the sudo service gdm3 stop on some other free terminal - the F3 one. – Klesun Sep 26 '21 at 10:20

score 15 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

15

I did a little more digging around and found that I could just use pgrep to find its PID and then kill it.

pgrep dm -l

sudo kill (insert PID here)

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

1

answered Jul 16 '13 at 14:24

Mysteriousness

795

4

I think this is a bit dangerous. You could kill the RAID software manager (mdadm). – Spiros Mar 17 '17 at 15:42

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 18 '14 at 05:20

8

You will need the help of htop or top. Write down the PID number of the process you want to kill (in this case, Xorg). Once you have the PID, run the below command in a root shell (sudo -s):

kill -9 <PID>

For example:

kill -9 1234

You should then be able to install the NVidia drivers.

edited Oct 18 '14 at 05:20

Kaz Wolfe

34,122
21
114
172

answered Jul 16 '13 at 14:21

dschinn1001

3,829

Thanks! actually realized this and started typing while you answered. – Mysteriousness Jul 16 '13 at 14:25
Do you have nvidia-card with CUDA ? - for this case there is special driver - you can read all this at my post here : http://askubuntu.com/questions/311151/how-can-i-install-nvidia-driver-gt-520-and-cuda-5-0-in-ubuntu13-04/311154#311154 – dschinn1001 Jul 16 '13 at 14:29

score 7 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 04 '14 at 08:31

7

Try running sudo service gdm stop.

The reason your command may be resulting in that output is because lightdm isn't your Display Manager.

In addition to gdm, also try xdm and kdm.

edited Oct 04 '14 at 08:31

Kaz Wolfe

34,122
21
114
172

answered Oct 04 '14 at 06:57

Habib Ouadhour

71
1
1

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 16 '13 at 13:50

3

/etc/init.d/lightdm stop maybe? And why you can't install nvidia drivers from software center?

answered Jul 16 '13 at 13:50

pondohva

521

1

They're outdated, the NVIDIA website always has the most recent drivers. – Mysteriousness Jul 16 '13 at 14:00

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 05 '15 at 01:18

Ok had the GTX 970 installation Problem under Ubuntu 14.04 too. Sometime i was able to start Ubuntu with the standart drivers and sometime not.

However, this should hopefully fix the Problem: After switching from IGP (I7 4770 with HD4600) to GTX970 in Biosi got an error with some Xorg Gui.

However you can not install the Nvidia-Driver while X is running: -> sudo killall Xorg solves the problem

Then -> sudo ./NVIDIA-x68xxx.run

After the first Driver Install (orig. Nvidia 352.xx) i had a blank screen. Then i run the Nvidia Driver Installer again -> sudo ./NVIDIA-x68xxx.run This second install told me some kind of noveu driver is running and should be disabled. The driver asked me if it should disable noveu -> Yes disable noveu

After restart: Et Voila lighdm is running again :)

How do I kill the x-server?

6 Answers6

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