How to boot Linux Mint to the console by default?

How to boot Linux Mint to the console by default? (that is, the run level 3).

2 methods introduced here to boot Linux Mint to console/command line.

Method 1 (may only work for earlier releases; check method 2 below): set kernel option.

Edit /etc/default/grub and add text to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash text"

Then, re-generate grub configuration file:

sudo update-grub2

Method 2: remove mdm.

Linux Mint uses mdm as the display manager. To boot to console (not graphical), you can remove the mdm:

sudo aptitude remove mdm mint-mdm-themes

If you like, you can clean up other stuffs used by mdm (not required though):

sudo rm -fr /usr/share/mdm
sudo aptitude remove plymouth-label plymouth-theme-ubuntu-text