On Oct 10,  7:00pm, seebs@plethora.net wrote:
} In message <199810102159.OAA27223@cue.bc.ca>, John Nemeth writes:
} 
} >     runlevels are another beef.  Every machine I have ever seen or
} >used was either in single user mode or full multi-user mode.  More
} >then those two "runlevels" were never used.  Can you give me a
} >non-contrived example where runlevels are truely useful, instead of
} >just being an annoyance?
} 
} I often want a machine "partially up".  For instance, I might want
} a machine in the mode where normal services are in place, but "network
} server" stuff is temporarily off.

     Yes, I realise that this was one of the supposed reasons for
runlevels.  But, both SVR4 variants that I have at hand start all
networks services, except the NFS server at runlevel 2.  This kind of
defeats the point.  Yes, I know that I could change that (here we go
mucking with symlinks again).  Anyways, it's very rare that I want to
do this.  When I do, I usually just create /etc/nologin (bye bye
users).  Of course, one could also just yank out the network cable.

} The nice thing is the ability to say "runlevel 4 is just like runlevel 3
} except that RADIUS is up in runlevel 4".  Then, if I want to do something
} for which I'd like to shut off RADIUS, I 'init 3' and it DTRT.

     This is what I would call a contrived example.  There are a lot
of things with which you might want to do this, but only two or three
spare runlevels.  This might be something that runlevels are good at
doing, but they are not nearly flexible enough for this purpose.  If
you had to do this with any regularity, you'd be better off creating
aliases.

}-- End of excerpt from seebs@plethora.net