The idea behind operating different services at different runlevels essentially revolves around the fact that different systems can be used in a different ways. Some services cannot be used until the system is in a particular state, or mode, such as ready for more than one user or has networking available.

The subject of this post is all about learning runlevels, and how to manage services effectively, such as Apache, Squid, SSH, and so on, in Ubuntu.

The scripts located in /etc/init.d are part of the bootup sequence of every Debian-like distro. Very often Ubuntu's documentation and guides have suggested - in order to deactivate init scripts - to change the permissions of the scripts in /etc/init.d, making them non-executable. This will have the following consequences:

Init scripts are the scripts located in /etc/init.d. These scripts are part of the bootup sequence of Ubuntu. During boot, they are not called directly, but through a structure of symbolic links which manage the services which are to be started in a particular runlevel.

This is very useful tip for all debian users. You can prevent automatic running of the GUI when you boot your debian machine by disabling your login manager be it KDM, GDM or XDM from running at boot time.

Debian…the father and grandfather of many a Linux distro. I think indirectly Debian is probably running on more computers than any other Linux distro. It’s the basis of Ubuntu, Mepis, Xandros, and many others. And many people use Debian where they need a nice, stable distro.

After nearly two years of work the the Debian development team have published Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (Lenny). Our trials show what you can expect from Lenny.

"It seems that the Debian team doesn't like to release minor versions anymore. After Debian 4.0 (code name 'Etch') released last year, the next Debian release (code name 'Lenny') will be numbered as Debian 5.0 as announced yesterday by Marc Brockschmidt: 'For reading this far, you receive the small reward of the knowledge that Lenny will be shipped as Debian 5.0.'

"Also interesting enough he mentioned that Lenny might be released with KDE4..."

Ok it’s time for another distro review and I’m a bit overdue with this one but I’m a big fan of Debian and when I reviewed Etch (4.0) last year I declared that if I were to finally grow up and settle down with just one distro this would be the one.