/etc/init.d/gdm stop causing system hang

[Peter Garrett]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:49 -0500
Peter <ubuntu at ourvirtualhome.com> wrote:

> If you really want to get rid of X, go to the console screen login,
> become root and type: telinit 3 This will get you into runlevel 3 of
> your system.

Yes - but it won't do what you expect, unless you have a custom
configuration for runlevel 3 :)

In Debian and Ubuntu, runlevel 3 is not by default " no X, networked" .
The default runlevel is 2, and is the same for X / not X . That is why the
usual way to make sure that X is not running is to do

sudo /etc/init.d/?dm  stop  

( where ? could be for example "g" "k" or "x" depending
on which dm is in use.) If no display manager is installed the system will
boot to runlevel 2, and present a login prompt on tty1.  Running "startx"
will not change the runlevel.

You can verify the above by typing " runlevel" in a terminal while X is
running, and when it is not . You will see 

$ runlevel
N 2

In both cases

... unless of course you have customised your runlevels, which few people
do.

Peter