I just ran into this problem: a Linux machine stuck very shortly after “Decompressing kernel…”, prompting me to enter a runlevel. Problem being that it wasn’t accepting any keyboard input from my USB keyboards and the system doesn’t have a PS/2 port. My Google search didn’t help much, so let me put this out there: check /etc/inittab. In my case, it was a one-line file clobbered by a pre-alpha quality product install. I was booted off of a rescue CD and once I copied /etc/inittab from another Linux system, it booted just fine off of the hard drive. So there you have it – if you’re getting “Enter runlevel” when booting when you’re not supposed to, check the health of /etc/inittab, especially the initdefault line.
id:3:initdefault:
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.