What is a run level? At this very moment, Fester Bester tester is sitting at the back of a lecture hall listening to a boring lecture on animal husbandry. To keep himself awake, Fester is playing a GUI-based game on his Linux laptop. What is the run level on Fester's computer? Across the campus, a Unix system administrator has brought down the system and rebooted, so he can solve an important hardware problem. What is the run level on the admin's computer?