You can configure the Lilo or Grub to start you system in Graphic or Text mode.

Also, in start time, if you have a graphical interface probably you have a menu with the text option there, if not on boot time you have a short interval to type "text" and the system will start on text mode.

Also, you can start on graphical mode and alteernate for many text other sessions. Just type CTRL+ALT+F1 of F2 or F3, each one is an independent work space. To bak to graphical CTRL+ALT+F7.

Look at VMWare home page for documentation.

Good luck and Hapy Holidays,

Eduardo

Although this link deals with the issue from the other way around (that is, getting your system to boot into the GUI when it normally boots to the text/command prompt level), it should give you some insight into how to configure your system to boot into the mode (runlevel) you desire.

Log in as root and then edit this file: /etc/inittab.

Find this line: id:5:initdefault
change it to: id:3:initdefault

reboot