ok, in an attempt (an unsuccessful one at that) to shut down my computer i got a message that it was switching to a different run level. waht are the runlevels, what do they stand for, and basically, what are they supposed to be used for? this isn't a crucial question, but i've been wondering about it.

thanks,
E

type: man init

A short breakdown of the runlevels in Linux. But like mikshaw mentioned, the man page on init will get more detailed of these, etc.

Runlevel 0 - Shutdown
Runlevel 1 - Single usermode
Runlevel 2 - Sort of like Single usermode, can't remember off top of my head differences.
Runlevel 3 - Multiuser mode w/ networking, etc
Runlevel 4 - Not used except for Slackware, starts X in Slackware.
Runlevel 5 - Starts up X at boot time
Runlevel 6 - Reboots

runlevels are different states used by the init program. depending on the runlevel init either starts, reboots, halts your computer. you can also use runlevels to define which programs to start on system startup

besides runlevel 0, 1 and 6, the runlevels are not defined clearly and may differ between different distributions. for example debian (by default) does not really make a difference between 2, 3, 4, and 5 (which is imho the smartest thing to do ;), suse uses runlevel 3 as 'normal' runlevel starting a terminal login and runlevel 5 starts a graphical login manager...

ok, thanks!