What is runlevel2?

ColKurtz · 01-27-2005, 06:51 PM

I've been changing the runlevels in inittab from 5 to 3 for the various distros I've installed (mainly b/c I'm using vmware and you have to install their toolset in non-graphical mode). I installed Ubuntu a little while ago and noticed the runlevel is 2. A little googling produced some results that said it's unused, and some others that say i'ts for custom runlevels.

What is runlevel2, and what is customization refer to in this case?

Thanks.

amosf · 01-27-2005, 07:08 PM

A distro can use whatever runlevel it wants, tho runlevel 2 is often used for multiuser with no networking...

michaelk · 01-27-2005, 08:49 PM

The runlevels are defined as:
0 - shut down the system
1 - single-user mode
2 - 5 multi-user mode
6 - reboot

From what I have read Redhat customized runlevels 2,3 & 5 and this has sort of become the defacto standard for many distros. Ubuntu is based on debian which does not use the same runlevel assignments as Redhat and others. Its default is 2 for networking and x.