If you log in as single user (LILO linux single) and run ntsysv to change application run levels it shows all connections to be blank [ ] versus what they might be running at all. While this might be intended behaviour it does not fit older behavior where ntsysv would show what applications would generally run. This gave users an easy tool to turn off applications that might cause problems if they tried to start the machine in run level 3 or 5. ntsysv-1.0.3-1
This is a behavior change, which is documented in the man page. To edit a particular runlevel, do 'ntsysv --levels 123', for example. Basically, the problem we're facing is how to avoid accidentally turning on X in runlevel 3. :(
Simplest way I've seen (can't remember which OS) takes into account the fact that there is (generally) a fixed upper bound on the number of runlevels. The ntsysv screen could be redone to look something like this: +-----------------------+ | Default Runlevel: [3] | +-----------------------+ +-PkgName--[1]-[2]-[3]-[4]-[5]-[6]-[7]-[8]-[9]-+ | apmd [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | .... | | xdm [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | +----------------------------------------------+ <<OK>> <<CANCEL>> I don't know what range of runlevels SysVinit can handle, so this may or may not be practical. Worth noting that a "typical" RedHat system only worries about runlevels 0, 3, 5 and 6. (I think. :-)