Changing Run Level

[unclebyron]

Just a quick question: How do I change my run level to where Linux boots into a command line by default instead running X first?

Thanks

[Flamedance]

2 ways to get that done :

1) The first requires you to press ctrl-x during the lilo screen. At the prompt, simply type 'linux single' (w/o the quotes)and after some messages, it'll drop you to a hash #.

2)Or you need to edit the /etc/inittab file as root. You may want to use the vi text editor, it's simple and handy. Run a terminal and type ' vi /etc/inittab' w/o the quotes. You'll get a screen similar to the following, anyway this is only the first part of it, which suffices the change you want to make.

#
# inittab This file describes how the INIT process should set up
the system in a certain run-level.
#
# Author: Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org>
# Modified for RHS Linux by Marc Ewing and Donnie Barnes
#

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
# 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
# 1 - Single user mode
# 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
# 3 - Full multiuser mode
# 4 - unused
# 5 - X11
# 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
#
id:5:initdefault:


Look for the ' id:5:initdefault: ' line and replace 5 with 1, so that it becomes ' id:1:initdefault: ' (again w/o the quotes)

Save the file and exit. Reboot and you should be able to run your system in single user mode. For more info type 'info inittab' at a terminal.

Hope this helps.

ps / Just an afterthought, why would you want to login as a single-user, since you're granted root priviledges, meaning there's no limit to what you can do to your system, even to destroy your filesystem : )

[furrycat]

Who said anything about booting into single-user mode? He said he wanted to boot into a command prompt. Runlevel 3 is the one for that:

id:3:initdefault:

[Flamedance]

Hey, dont bawl at me! I was just trying to help and in the excitement I seemed to missed that point, almost entirely.

A newbie is a newbie, which is me. http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/smile.gif

[furrycat]

I would hardly say I was bawling at you.

[Flamedance]

http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/biggrin.gif http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/biggrin.gif http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/biggrin.gif http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/biggrin.gif http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/biggrin.gif