Re: booting Debian-6 in run level 3

[Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk>]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 04:21:11PM +0530, Bijoy Lobo wrote:
>    Hi Everyone,
> 
>    I have read online that Debian Squeeze has no differentiation in runlevels
>    from 2-5, although I would like to boot my debian box in CLI mode. Any way
>    I can achieve this?

Out of the box, this is true, but it is considered acceptable for system
maintainers to alter the runlevels.

First of all, you need to determine which Display Manager you're using
to start graphical mode. Usually this will be gdm or gdm3, but might be
kdm, xdm or something else. Find the init-script for that service
(/etc/init.d/gdm3, for example). At the top of the script you will find
a comment:

 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5

Change this to read:

 # Default-Start:     2 4 5

Next up, find the link to that script in /etc/rc3.d (it will be SXXgdm3
for example, were XX is a number). Delete that symlink.

Your system should now be configured not to start the display manager in
runlevel 3 (if you intend to switch to runlevel 3 from another runlevel,
you will need to do extra work). The modification to the init script
should A) persist (it's a conffile so you'll get the opportunity to
merge changes at upgrades) and B) mean the symlink doesn't get put back.

Now, all you should need to do is reboot, adding "3" to the end of your
kernel command line.

> 
>    --
>    Thanks and Regards
>    Bijoy Lobo

-- 
Darac Marjal