How do I prevent Linux services from auto-starting?

I have recently migrated from Windows to Linux (xubuntu)

I am a developer and have installed everything I need, LAMP. In Windows I used to turn off all unnecessary services - I don't need the Apache or MySQL service running all the time. Whenever I needed MySQL I used to use:

net start mysql

How do I do the same in Linux?

1. Disabling not-needed daemons from auto-starting?


2. Starting them only when I need them?

Answer

In most linux distributions you can manually start/stop services by (as root or using sudo) running the following commands:

# /etc/init.d/apache2 start
# /etc/init.d/mysqld start

# /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
# /etc/init.d/mysqld stop

Which services that are automatically started is controlled by file links in /etc/rc[runlevel].d/ . Find your current runlevel by using the command "runlevel" as root

# runlevel
N 2

Which here indicates runlevel 2 Now you just have to remove those files in /etc/rc2.d/ which you don't want started.

Removing apache and Mysql on a desktop is usually ok, but be aware of removing other services.