(I send this again as in 24 hours, it seems not to have reached the list)
(sorry if it is a repeat)

Please forgive inaccuracies in the description below, the system was in so
insane a state, I could not edit a file to capture the exact text from the
console, so it is re-created as best I can manage.

To do some maintenence on my system, I wanted to shutdown to single-user
mode.  To do this, I issued 

telinit S

as root user.  The result was a strange.  After a short time, I have what 
looks like a runlevel 1 prompt, but to makesure, I enter:

sh-2.05a# runlevel

the next thing I see is the shell complaining, followed by a regular bash
prompt:

rnee: command not found
[root@localhost root]#

just to clear the buffer I stike the [Enter] key, and bash complains:

bash: ulvl: command not found

Just for kicks, I try telling the shell:

sh-# rruunnlleevveell [enter]
S 3
[root@localhost root]# (so I hit enter again)
S 3
sh-2.05a#  

At that point, since the mouse would still work, I attempted to edit a
file with "vi foo" and found myself lost in a veritable hall of mirrors
trying to figure out where I was.  eventually, I was able to get back to
a prompt pair, and told them eexxiitt and the system returned to a sane
state, in runlevel 3.  Here are the (I think) relevant packages I have
installed:

[root@localhost root]$ uname -r
2.4.18-21mdkenterprise
[root@localhost root]$ rpm -q bash initscripts basesystem SysVinit
bash-2.05a-5mdk
initscripts-6.40.2-44mdk
basesystem-8.2-3mdk
SysVinit-2.83-3mdk


No strangeness is apparant if I enter runlevel 1 at boot-time using

lilo: linux devfs=nomount init S


--
-Chuck


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