TTY startx runs different GUI than graphical.target

I recently setup a live Ubuntu 20.04 stick. This is the first time I'm trying Ubuntu, but I am somewhat familiar with the system because I have a RaspberryPi running Raspbian. Everything works great. I am planning on setting it up on a computer to run headless, so I disabled the graphical interface by editing the grub configuration and changing the systemctl default to multi-user.target.

All this works great, however if I use startx to start a graphical session, the gui is actually different than auto-booting to gui. For example, there is no Appearance option in settings and the Dock is not visible without hitting the start key on the keyboard. The workspace/desktop view is also different. It's as if it is starting a different display manager or something. How do I change how startx boots things?

Again, I'm totally new to this, but would really appreciate the help. I would prefer for both the startx and the auto-graphics to be the same.

1 Answer

You don't need to modify GRUB configuration .

To change the current default target :

systemctl set-default multi-user.target

To get the current default target :

systemctl get-default
graphical.target

Now what you can do when you are in text/tty mode , you can start the graphical target by doing this :

sudo systemctl isolate graphical.target 

And you will have the graphical login that will display .

If you need to go back to text/tty mode

sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target