thanks, i either make stuff that is very useful or very useless, no in between.

I seem to do the same thing, but can't bring myself to chunk 'em, I have a "crap" folder I throw into. Wife asked me one day why I keep that stuff at all, and I told her it's for the same reason I have two full totes of old wire, cabling and cords in the garage, lol. You just never know when it _might_ become useful.

@EDX-0 still checking out what you're doing, good stuff!

It checks current runlevel first, then spits out a yad dialog giving you  level.
Then pops up the dialog that changes runlevels
Afterwards runs "runlevel" again to check new state of runlevel and report that.

ETA: Updated 12-18-24, this one mo bettah. Adds another dialog for if the runlevel was not changed. Cleaned up some useless code. expanded some windows due to title cutoff.

#!/bin/sh

# Copyleft: greenjeans 2024, use as you see fit.
# This is free software with NO WARRANTY. Use at your own risk!
# Depends: yad

# DESCRIPTION:
# Simple script to change run levels. Requires root access so authentication is needed.
# In Vuu-do 5, cups, cups-browsed, and bluetooth are disabled by default in runlevel 2,
# which is the default runlevel you boot into in Devuan/Debian systems. 
# But they are all enabled in runlevel 3, and switching enables and starts the services, 
# and switching back stops/disables them. A .desktop is used to include in menu.
# Can also be used in terminal: levelswitch2 (must be root).

crlev=$(runlevel "$1")

lv=$(echo "$crlev" | awk -F ' ' '{ print $2 }')

yad --fixed --form --width=400 --window-icon=start-here --height=100 --center --borders=10 --button=gtk-ok --title="Runlevel status" --text-align=center --text="
Current runlevel is:  $lv"

rlev=$(yad --fixed --window-icon=start-here --center --borders=10 --form --title="Enable/disable cups and bluetooth" --text-align-center --field="Select from drop-down menu:":CB --text-align=center --wrap --text="
By default Vuu-do boots into runlevel 2, and cups and bluetooth are disabled on startup for faster boot.

Choose below to enable and start them for this session by switching 
to runlevel 3, or turn them back off by switching to run level 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Default runlevel on boot can be changed by editing /etc/inittab as root.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Choose 3 to enable cups and bluetooth, 2 for disable
" 'Choose runlevel!2!3'

)

rl=$(echo "$rlev" | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|" } { print $1 }')

if [ "$rl" = 'Choose runlevel' ]
then echo "runlevel was not changed"
else telinit "$rl"
fi

crlev2=$(runlevel "$1")

lv2=$(echo "$crlev2" | awk -F ' ' '{ print $2 }')

if [ "$lv2" = "$lv" ]
then yad --fixed --form  --width=500 --height=100 --window-icon=start-here --center --borders=10 --button=gtk-ok --title="Runlevel status" --text-align=center --text="
The runlevel has not been changed, current level is:  $lv2"
else yad --fixed --form  --width=400 --height=100 --window-icon=start-here --center --borders=10 --button=gtk-ok --title="Runlevel status" --text-align=center --text="
The current runlevel is now:  $lv2"
fi

And the .desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Enable/disable cups+bluetooth
Comment=Enable services by changing runlevels
Icon=emblem-system
Exec=gksu.sh levelswitch2
Categories=Settings;

gksu.sh :

# Script to convert gksu to pkexec for extensions already written
# without adding a lot of code to the .desktop command line.
# Usage: "gksu.sh [program]"

#!/bin/bash
if [ -z $1 ]; then
 echo -e "at least 1 argument required!\n" >> /dev/stderr
 exit 1
fi
COMMAND=$1
shift #shift first arg
for ARG in "$@"
do
 if [ -z "$ARGS" ]; then
  ARGS="$ARG"
 else
  ARGS="$ARGS $ARG"
 fi 
done
ARGS=\'$ARGS\'
eval pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY $COMMAND $ARGS
exit 0

in short is to decide if using sudo, sudo with askpass or pkexec:

  has_tty=""
  if tty | grep -qF -e "dev/tty" -e "dev/pts"; then
    has_tty=1
  fi
  if [ -n "$has_tty" ]; then
    sudo command
  else
    if [ -n "$SUDO_ASKPASS" ]; then
      sudo -A command
    else
      pkexec command
    fi
  fi

the content of $SUDO_ASKPASS is usually some program to read a password from the user, some use dmenu or rofi but both programs advice not to use them for password prompts... on my system i set SUDO_ASKPASS to /usr/bin/ssh-askpass which is provided by the ssh-askpass-gnome package, tho i also got a polkit authentication agent for programs like gparted and the like, on my case i run /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1 as a daemon inside my user session the program is provided by the policykit-1-gnome package.

Seems like you could take the password in yad, but I usually just make a .desktop for the whole thing, and used to use gksu in the exec line so it the system authorization dialog. Then I can use it in /usr/share/applications, and the obmenu-generator picks it up automatically and gives me a menu entry to activate, or in the .local files for context menu stuff, or both.

Well cool, they're off now already in runlevel 2, I just need to run update-rc.d and give a specific instruction about enabling it in 3.

Man that's even better, I don't even have to really make a script, just a .desktop that pxexec's the "init 3 "command. That's as simple as it gets right there, again, really appreciate the help!

Not sure what you have in mind, but one way to get root would be to have yad start a terminal that runs su -c 'init 3' and then it'll ask for root pass in the terminal. If you don't want the user to see a terminal, I think you can use yad to take a password and feed it to the command. I'm not as clear on this. See /usr/lib/refracta2usb/functions/function.mkloop around lines 104 and 176 for an example.

So I leave those services disabled in 2.

Leave them enabled them in 3, which is not the default level I boot to, so they won't be running and still won't be started and won't be part of the boot process.

Add a script + yad that switches to run level 3 and then simply invokes the "service" commands to start them.

It's perfect for what I want to do.

Thanks fsmithred and EDX-0, and I won't forget to credit y'all in the script description and such!

Turn them off in runlevel 2, and then the command to turn them on is

init 3

Wow, perfect, short and sweet, and as per your usual answers to me I just have to know why it works and I just went nuts on reading documentation about init and run levels that I really should have done long ago.

So no issues at all in just switching to run level 3?

Totally not surprising it's perl, some of the best stuff is. I've got a whole bunch of Trizen's other stuff laying around here besides obmenu-generator, that guy does some amazing work in perl.

ETA: lawd, I need to step away from the computer for a bit, or stop drinking this cheap walmart bourbon, I actually did find a source tar.gz two days ago, downloaded and meant to build but forgot about it.

Wow, I'm taking a day off tomorrow, my brain has gone to mush.

edit: took me a while but i found something on the archive of old ubuntu releases https://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ … rse/b/bum/

edit 2: so it is a program written in perl, somehow not surprised...