Is there a native terminal in OS X, without having to load the desktop, window manager, etc? [duplicate]

I don't think Single User Mode is really what you want.

A better idea is to use a console login.

To do this, first you have the login window set to show “Name and Password”:

Then you can login as ">console" as the username (no password) and get a terminal prompt.

It's not very pretty, but it's handy if you need it.

In addition to what TJ Luoma said, you can also:

1. Go to the normal login screen, with the list of users.

2. Select one (any, it doesn't matter) with the keyboard.

3. Press ⌥ Option+↩︎ Return.

4. Type >console in the username field, leaving the password blank.

5. Press ↩︎ Return and log in.

Unfortunately I haven't had much luck with this—sometimes it just doesn't show up, with or without an external display.

What you are looking for is called Single-User mode. Restart the computer, once you hear the start-up chime, hold down Command-S and OS X will load everything but the GUI.