gdm-stop

Stop the GNOME Display Manager application

$ gdm-stop

gdm-stop

The gdm-stop command is a utility from the GDM (GNOME Display Manager) package designed to safely terminate the GDM daemon. GDM handles graphical login sessions on Linux systems using GNOME. This command ensures a clean shutdown by identifying and signaling GDM processes (gdm and gdm-binary) to exit gracefully, avoiding abrupt kills that could corrupt sessions or X servers.

It is invoked from a local console or running session, often for maintenance like switching to text mode, resolving display hangs, or preparing for kernel updates. Running gdm-stop logs out all graphical users and stops displays, freeing resources. In legacy SysV init or Upstart systems, it complements init scripts; however, on modern systemd distributions (e.g., Ubuntu 16.04+, Fedora), systemctl stop gdm is recommended for better integration.

Typically requires root privileges via sudo. After stopping, restart with gdm-start or the service manager. It's lightweight, implemented as a simple script scanning PIDs via pidof or pgrep and sending SIGTERM/SIGKILL.

Requires root privileges; instantly logs out all users from graphical sessions; not suitable for remote use over SSH without precautions; may fail if GDM processes are unresponsive, falling back to pkill; deprecated in systemd environments.

sudo gdm-stop
Stops GDM immediately.

Switch to tty with Ctrl+Alt+F3; restart via systemctl start gdm or gdm-start.

Originated in GDM 2.x (circa 2002-2010) for SysV init compatibility. Maintained through GDM 3.x transitions but overshadowed by systemd integration since 2010s. Still packaged in distributions like Ubuntu/Debian for legacy support.

gdm(8), gdm-start(8), systemctl(1), service(8)