Victor’s Programming Aid

The standard Run Level for a linux machine booting up in full GUI mode is Run Level 5. In my experience, the most common Run Level (other than 5 for standard boot up) is Run Level 3. The most common need for Run Level 3 is for debugging problems and installing graphic drivers.

If you want to specify a default Run Level other than 5, the option can be changed in your /etc/inittab as defined by the initdefault directive. Below is a table specifying the other various Run Levels and State properties. Note that it is important never to set your initdefault directive to Run Level 0 or 6.

Change Run Level After Boot Up

The easiest way to change the Run Level after the system has already been booted up is to open up the console and use init. There is an example below on how to change the Run Level to 3.

init 3

In addition, teleinit is an alternative to init and works in exactly the same manner.

telinit 3 

Change Run Level on System Boot Up

If however your Linux machine is currently powered off and you would like to boot directly into an alternative Run Level, you can change the Run Level by accessing the linux startup boot menu (GRUB). Simply choose the desired kernel and add init 3 into the kernel string.

Nowadays, most computers come built without a 3.5″ floppy drive. And 99% of the time, the floppy drive just is not required anymore. USB Flash drives, otherwise known as memory sticks or thumb drives, have made the floppy disk obsolete. Therefore, booting from a memory stick is the next step.To create a memory stick, you will need to first download and extract (unzip) two files: HP USB Disk Format Tool and Windows 98 System Files. Follow the steps below:

1. To create the bootable USB memory stick, install the HP USB Disk Format Tool.
2. Insert your USB memory stick into a the computer.
3. IMPORTANT: Backup files you wish to keep onto the local hard drive (as this process will delete all files on the memory stick).
4. Start up the installed application from the HP USB Disk Format Tool.
5. The device dropdown will automatically populate and identify your memory stick.
6. Select Fat32 from the Filesystem dropdown.
7. Check the box with “Create a DOS startup disk”.
8. In the following textbox, browse to the location of the extracted files from the Windows 98 Systesm Files.
9. Click the “Start” button.
10. Click “Yes” to the following dialog box warning you of file deletion.
11. Next, copy all extracted files from the Windows 98 System Files folder onto the USB memory stick to enable cd rom and mouse support.

Your USB memory stick is now bootable. If you wish to boot your computer from the USB key, be sure to set the proper settings in the BIOS.