Boot without X

[Bob Nielsen]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 12:18:36AM +0300, ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-07-29 at 21:23 -0300, Derek Broughton wrote:
> > Huh?  run level 2, in both Ubuntu and Debian, runs with X.
> This is not true.  Run-level "2" in *Debian* will not start X.
> Run-level "5" only starts X.  In *Ubuntu* however (and to be honest, I
> find it very weird and wrong) it does start X in run-level "2".  (I was
> wrong in my last post because I changed my run-level scripts to not
> start X in run-level "2" which it should be.  My apology to the List)

In Debian/Ubuntu, the default runlevels 2-5 are identical (runlevel 2 is 
the default).  This allows one to create customized levels if desired.  
For example, removing the S13gdm symbolic link from /etc/rc2.d will 
allow the system to boot into a virtual console instead of X.  As long 
as a symbolic link exists in one of the /etc/rc{2|3|4|5}.d directories, 
the links will not be changed during an upgrade.  

I haven't tried it, but from looking at 'man telinit' it appears to be 
possible to select the run level with a boot flag (in 
/boot/grub/menu.lst) so one could have separate menu entries for booting 
with and without X in the same way that recovery mode is chosen.

Bob