Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 11:35:47 -0500 (EST) From: Jamie Bowden <jamie@itribe.net> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org>, jkh@zippy.cdrom.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: From Slashdot... Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.96.990202112255.12464A-100000@animaniacs.itribe.net> In-Reply-To: <199902020102.SAA01651@usr08.primenet.com>
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On Tue, 2 Feb 1999, Terry Lambert wrote: > The big win is not run levels (which should be run states, anyway), > but what else it buys you. > > > What it buys you is the ability to replace things very easily, for > example, you can replace the SMTP server "sendmail" with "qmail" or > "vmailer" and have it look like it's really part of the system > instead of a frob you glued on with nature's original rubber cement. > > For example, how would you add on something that ran the first time > to configure the X server, then thereafter just ran the X server, > and then after the X server was running, ran a copy of xdm to set > up your login? > > How would you drop a component into the user creation mechanism to > not only configure the user's .cshrc or .bashrc, but als their .xinit > and their other X configuration files? > > Etc.. What Terry's talking about here is akin to Irix's chkconfig utility. It's a generic boolean that most rc*.d scripts are tied to, which checks if a given service is on or off, and starts said service or exits. Irix is hated among many in the Unix community, and I really don't understand why. I've been adminning Irix since the release of 5.0, and yes, it sucked stability wise in those early 5.x releases, but as systems go, Irix is tied together really nicely, and gives you easy to use CLI and GUI tools (the GUI tools are just front ends for the CLI tools). I can chkconfig sendmail to no, and put my own [v|q]mail script in /etc/init.d, link it to the appropriate /etc/rcX.d/SXX[v|q]mail, and either add it to check config, with the appropriate checks, or just start it. SGI's package management system is also it's install systems (much like sysinstall in concept, but cleaner and better), and everything, down to the kernel is a package. Makes Irix real easy to patch. Sure, the SysV model isn't great, but it's a hell of a lot easier to work with than a single monolithiic rc.* system, and it makes it very easy to add the necessaries to install new software. It also makes it really easy to make the system grphical, as starting xdm is a simple manner of setting a boolean value, and rerunning the one script that handles it's startup. Jamie Bowden -- If we've got to fight over grep, sign me up. But boggle can go. -Ted Faber (on Hasbro's request for removal of /usr/games/boggle) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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