The issue was me not having a screen lock passcode defined. Not sure if this is the best way to approach this, a settings page for editing user information (including name and root password) would be useful, that one could then opt out for the screenlock.

@TermuxnTR its from 20.04 , 16.04 is not booting

I've figure it out that entering 'selection mode' with a long press is precisely what I was looking for. Would still be useful to somehow start the terminal on selection mode and hide the 'Exit selection mode' option