Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot in graphical.target 2. Run systemctl start runlevel2.target Aug 19 12:26:11 f14-devel kernel: init[1]: Added job prefdm.service/stop to transaction. but Aug 19 12:26:11 f14-devel kernel: init[1]: prefdm.service/stop would stop a running service. Aug 19 12:26:11 f14-devel kernel: init[1]: Deleting prefdm.service/stop to minimize impact. Aug 19 12:26:11 f14-devel kernel: init[1]: Deleting job plymouth-quit.service/start as dependency of job prefdm.service/stop Aug 19 12:26:11 f14-devel kernel: init[1]: Deleting job getty/start as dependency of job prefdm.service/stop Actual results: prefdm.service is still running. Expected results: prefdm.service should be stopped and there should be mingetty on tty1
You need to use "systemctl isolate runlevel2.target" for this. "systemctl start" starts a service in addition to what is already running. "systemctl isolate" starts a service and stops everything else that isn't a dependency. That means that for something resembling changing of runlevels "isolate" is the more appropriate call.
same behaviour with isolate: # rpm -q systemd systemd-8-3.fc14.i686 # ls -l /etc/systemd/system/default.target lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 36 Aug 16 14:43 /etc/systemd/system/default.target -> /etc/systemd/system/runlevel5.target after boot: graphical.target loaded active active prefdm.service loaded active running then i run: # systemctl isolate runlevel2.target Aug 30 08:39:40 hal init[1]: prefdm.service/stop would stop a running service. Aug 30 08:39:40 hal init[1]: Deleting prefdm.service/stop to minimize impact. graphical.target is gone but prefdm.service is still running
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 627014 ***