Can anyone explain the use of init3

[Jeff Vian]

On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 17:27 +0100, Ian Malone wrote:
> On 19/04/06, Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org> wrote:
> > Ali Helmy wrote:
> > > A simple question: Why would I want to drop to runlevel 3 in the first
> > > place? I mean, when I need to run a text-only mode on FC5 [and on FC4 worked
> > > well too] I just press Ctrl+Alt+F[1-6] and I get a text mode... I mean, what
> > > would
> > > Ctrl+Alt+F1
> > > then init 3
> >
> > This would stop X.
> >
> > > Differ from jusy typing
> > > Ctrl+Alt+F1?
> >
> > This would leave X and all apps running. Use Ctrl-Alt-F7 to go back to X.
> >
> > You might want to go to runlevel 3 to change X drivers, which you
> > wouldn't want to do with X running.
> >
> 
> Actually, I'd quite like to be able to do that with X running, although
> I suspect there's not much demand.
> 
You may want to do that with X running.  However, since the driver is
used when X is running and is inactive when X is not running it is not
possible to do so.

The driver is an integral part of the current X session and X has to be
shutdown to unload the (old) driver from memory. 
> --
> imalone
>