Changing your runlevels

The default runlevel is specified in the file /etc/inittab , and the line id:5:initdefault: says that this system boots to runlevel 5 by defaults. That can be changed by editing the file or by adding the runlevel to the list of kernel options when booting.

If you sometimes want a desktop and sometimes not, you could have separate bootloader menu entries to enable you to choose between them. You can change runlevels after the computer has booted with the telinit command. If you booted to a text console and now want a desktop, you would run, as root $ telinit 5 Systemd doesn’t have runlevels, and its equivalents are targets: multi-user.target is the equivalent of runlevel 3 while graphical.target matches 5. The equivalent of the above telinit command to switch from text to graphical is $ systemctl isolate graphical.target The default target is set like this $ systemctl set-default graphical.target and you can specify a different target on the bootloader kernel line with systemd. unit=multiuser.target .