>#  a) single user
>#  b) multi user (which include networking and nfs stuff)
>#  c) hardware (or "press any key to reboot") [1]
>#  d) power off (for people for whom apm or whatever can turn the machine off)
>#  e) rebooting
># 
>#  [1] do sparcs go to the ok prompt here?  i don't have one, so i don't
>#  know.
>
>I think that state is better referred to as 'halt'.  i386s don't halt,
>really, they pause, but: powerdown/halt/reboot/single/multi, yeah, that's
>about right.  Oh, yeah: [1]: Yes.

well...it's about as "halt" as they can, but yes.  you realize, of
course, that now *you're* being pedantic.  :)

># i never really understood the distinction between S (and s) and 1 in
># solaris.  calling them different "run-levels" seems pedantic in and of
># itself.
>
>I'd like to see us skip the single-letter naming convention for run-levels
>and just run symbolically.

maybe we could just give them names?

>I think, by the way, that 1 will actually shut some other things down before
>going to S.

hmm...okay.

># in the spirit of bsd...i think it's fair to say that you can do that if
># you want to.  hey!  why not roll up some init patches to make it spew
># the contents of various files at various "levels"?  :)
># 
>#    printf("New run level: %ld\n", random());
>
>Well, :-), not quite.

btw, before i wonder too far off topic...the concept of runlevels is a
point of semantics...not so much one of actual engineering.  the
kernel is the kernel either way, and i'm sure you could run a bsd
user-land on a solaris kernel so that all the user interfaces and
library calls were exactly what you expected.

i remember reading somewhere that the best way to tell a sysv system
from bsd system was to look at two things: whether or not the system
has a file called /etc/inittab and the format of the accounting file.

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