[Xephyrous]

You can run a headless Linux distro (although that's not exactly turnkey, I know). If you're already running linux, you can hit something like ctrl+alt+F3 to get a commandline only UI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_(Unix)

Note for anyone who tries this out - to get back to your main session, try ctrl+alt+F1 or ctrl+alt+F2

[gglitch]

Last time I was on Ubuntu, ctl+alt+F1 through F6 were virtual terminals; F7 was the gui.

Edit: I've usually been on Macs for the last three years, and I miss that functionality almost daily.

[LeoPanthera]

On most modern distros (I think it was systemd that caused this change?) 1 is now the GUI, 2 is a text console, and 3-7 don't exist unless you manually add them.

[JdeBP]

Graphical splash screens in the RedHat bootstrap process caused the change, about 2 years before systemd even existed.

* https://lwn.net/Articles/305047/

* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/BetterStartup

* https://blogs.gnome.org/halfline/2009/11/28/plymouth-%E2%9F%...

* https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=480113

[LeoPanthera]

I stand corrected.

[Xephyrous]

It used to be that way, now when I try it F1 is a sign-in screen, F2 is my main GUI, F3-F6 are normal virtual terminals, and F7 is some process that I don't recognize.

[gglitch]

2nd edit: Alt plus the side arrows scrolls between them.