How can I restart X Window Server from the command line?
I'd really like to be able to restart my GUI without having to do a full system reboot.
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TL;DR: on systems with systemd (Ubuntu 15.04 and newer)
sudo systemctl restart display-manager
This will restart the appropriate display manager service (lightdm
till 17.04, gdm3
after, sddm
in Kubuntu, etc.). You can replace display-manager
with lightdm
, gdm3
, sddm
, etc. if needed, but this should be enough.
For other Ubuntu versions, first find which display manager your ubuntu is having with following command:
cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager
Than depending on what display manager, you can use one of the following commands:
Default Ubuntu (with LightDM)
sudo systemctl restart lightdm
Gnome (with GDM)
sudo systemctl restart gdm
KDE (with KDM)
sudo systemctl restart kdm
Note: From 12.10 to 15.04, Kubuntu also uses LightDM.
For MDM (e.g. for Mint Cinnamon)
sudo systemctl restart mdm
sudo reboot
reboots all your system, that is the computer, while this restarts only the Xorg server, so that other programs, which do not require a graphical interface, for instance a web server, can continue to work. As well as all mounter file systems (like encrypted ones), all connections to remote hosts etc. do persists in the case of this instead of the reboot
command
Jun 16, 2016 at 6:43
For 11.04 and earlier:
sudo service gdm restart
For 11.10 and later:
sudo service lightdm restart
Found out that you can do
sudo pkill X
and it seems to work for me!
You can try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart X.
Newest version of Ubuntu as of 24 Oct, 2012.
Command Line:
sudo restart lightdm
Since ubuntu 9.04 Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is disabled, however you can now type Alt gr + Print Screen + K.