debian runlevel init 3

joyman555 · 02-16-2005, 04:08 PM

Hi

I'm running Debian sarge, and I have trouve switching runlevels, I can switch to runlevel 1 by typing "init 1" but init 2, 3 and up seems to keep my X server.
So how can I run without my X server, do I have to change anything in /etc/inittab ?
Thanks for the help

Arthur

bigrigdriver · 02-16-2005, 04:27 PM

Near the top of /etc/inittab, there is a comment which states: "The default runlevel is defined here", which is followed by the statement "id:x:initdefault". The X stands for the default runlevel. Change it to 5, save, and reboot to see if it starts if GUI mode (runlevel 5). If it boots to runlevel 3 (command line), issue the command "startx" to see if it starts the X server.
All of the commands are, of course, issued without quotes.

joyman555 · 02-16-2005, 05:45 PM

Thanks, I'll try that, but I thought there was a way to do it without rebooting or changing any setting, just to have a runlevel 3 for a moment.

Andrew Benton · 02-16-2005, 05:49 PM

Debian seems to just use run levels 1 and 2. init 1 is the command prompt and init 2 is X. If you want the command prompt edit /etc/inittab and change initdefault to 1

Code:

sed -i 's@id:2:initdefault:@id:1:initdefault:@g' /etc/inittab

joyman555 · 02-16-2005, 05:56 PM

But level 1 is single-user mode right ? and I need a multi-user mode with no X, so how do I do that ?
Can I change level 1 to be multiuser ?

Thanks

rbochan · 02-16-2005, 08:04 PM

try this command:
cat /etc/init.d/README

Lleb_KCir · 02-16-2005, 09:30 PM

there are some apps you can download and install via apt-get to edit the apps that start up with each runlevel in debian.

Debian uses runlevel 2-5 as graphical. you have to manually tell it to not start up X for runlevel2.

http://qref.sourceforge.net/Debian/r...tombootscripts

that link tells you exactly how and what to use to edit the runlevel list for debian.

joyman555 · 02-17-2005, 10:32 AM

Thanks a lot

trebek · 04-07-2008, 08:32 PM

I've been trying all of this and it just doesn't work.

I am trying to get into init 3 runlevel to install my nvidia driver, but i can't do it. Ctrl+alt+backspace just logs me out. Inits 1 and 2 do something. And no matter how i get into a console, i always get a message within the driver installer that X server is running.

I even typed telinit 3 as root to see if it would drop into it. But debian is just not paying attention to it.

Is there a simpler, direct way instead of modifying scripts???

Thanks a lot.

Icode4food · 04-14-2008, 04:23 PM

Shouldn't you go to /etc/rc2.d and move S21gdm/S21kdm to K21gdm/K21gdm.

That way when you in run level 2 it would kill the X server

trebek · 04-15-2008, 01:47 AM

Thanks for the tip, i would have tried that, but i just killed X server with 'killall gdm'. That way i just forced init 3, i suppose.

Thanks for the help everyone. I appreciate it.