After some googling, let me share with you how could I make it happen:

 - First of all make sure you backup up the grub configuration file by running the following command, so that you may revert the settings easily later if needed 

 `sudo cp -n /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.backup`

 - Open the terminal by hitting `Ctrl+Alt+T`, and give the following command to edit the grub configurations file 

 `sudo gedit /etc/default/grub`

 - Go to the line# 11, there you should see `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet”`, comment this line by putting a pound sign (i.e. `#`) in the beginning of the line, it will disable the purple boot screen which you see at the startup.

 - Move to the line#12, you should see the following text `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”"`, change it to `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”text"`, it will make your appliance boot into console/text mode.

 - Move to line#20, you should see there: `#GRUB_TERMINAL=console`, uncomment it by removing the pound sign (i.e. `#` symbol).

 - Lastly, issue the following command so that changes may take effect for the next boot 

 `sudo update-grub`

 - now reboot the machine, you will be booted into the console mode, give the username `jharvad` and password `crimson`

 - after providing the login credentials, you will come to know that you cannot control your mouse, hit `Ctrl+Alt` if you are using vmware workstation and right `Ctrl` key in case you are using virtualbox to get the mouse released.

 - then ssh from your host machine into the appliance, to know the ip address of the appliance, issue it the command `ifconfig`

 - start the dropbox by issuing the command, `dropbox start`, I couldn't figure out how to start it automatically on boot.

 - To shutdown the appliance issue `sudo poweroff`, and to reboot `sudo reboot`.

 - If you ever need the default GUI for a single session, give the command `startx`

 - If you ever want to revert to default boot settings permanently i.e. boot into GUI directly every time, issue the following command 
 `sudo mv /etc/default/grub.backup /etc/default/grub && sudo update-grub`

I created this tutorial by adapting [this][1].


  [1]: http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2014/01/boot-into-text-console-ubuntu-linux-14-04/