Pretty straight forward. Fresh install of 3.3, log in as root in console, init 3, no response (no error, nothing--just returns another <root@computer> line). The only INIT I can change to is 6, and then the only way I can get to init 3 is to boot up to it to begin with.

Never experienced it on any other distro, and can't find any similar problems. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Three questions:

1) Did you run an md5sum on the download?
2) Did you use a CD-R to burn the image on?
3) Did you burn it at a low speed (4x)?

It's a known issue that fast burns or CD-RWs can cause the CD to not work right, so if to any of these questions you can answer "no" then I suggest trying a new burn.

Thanks for the reply.

Upon fresh burn (because I honestly couldn't remember if I checked sums or not), and fresh install of /, same problem.

user@1[~]$ su
Password:
root@1[user]# init 3
root@1[user]#

is what I see in console. I looked at /etc/inittab and just saw general information (to me), and nothing that looked like it might cause a problem, but I'm a newb.

Not sure where to go from here.

EDIT: Ok, I found out that I can change runlevels from init 3, but not from init 5. In init 5, I logged in as root just as above in a console and changed to init 1. From there I was able to change to 3, and back to 5, but for some reason I can't go from 5 to 3 directly.

At this point I'd say click the link in my siggie and ask on the Mepis forums, I am sure someone can help you out.

Tell them that you have followed the three instructions already or you will see they will all tell you that again *laughs*

Good luck!

Debian and distros based on it don't use the same runlevel system as other distros. To get to the mode equivalent to "init 3", you need to do as root
To get back to the runlevel that equates to "init 5" on other distros do as root
Debian uses runlevel two as defaut and thats the runlevel that X is started. If you use xdm or gdm, just replace kdm with the appropriate login manager.

Thanks, red, that worked. Good to know about Debian's own quirks.