On Sunday 23 January 2005 12:08 pm, Jay kindly wrote: > On Sun, 23 Jan 2005, Siri Amrit Kaur wrote: > > Besides the BSD's, are there any Linux distros _NOT_ based on > > Slackware that use the BSD-style init scripts? The BSD-style of > > init scripts is one of my chief reasons for using Slackware. > > > > Most distros use SysV, and by default turn on a lot of services > > that I don't need or want. Except for Mandrake or PCLOS, which > > make it easy to turn off unneeded services, I find it confusing > > and hard to turn off services in a SysV system. I like Mepis and > > Ubuntu, but because they're Debian-based they use SysV-style init > > scripts and I can't figure out how to turn off unneeded services. > > I used to be a Slackware user from around 1994 - 1999. I wanted to > check out other distributions, but I also found the SysV init > process strange after so much Slackware time. However, once I poked > around at it, I actually learned to love SysV init, and still do > today as a Debian user. > > SysV is really quite simple once you understand the basic process > of runlevels (which are also present in BSD-style init, but just > more "hidden"). Do a "man init" will give you a good idea. > Basically, a crash-course would be: > > * There are several run levels your system can be in. > > * Run level 0 is for halt (shutdown), 1 is for booting up the > system, and 6 is for rebooting. There is also run level "S" (or "s" > - they are the same) which is also used for inital bootup into > single-user mode. All of these run levels are considered "reserved" > and you probably will not need to know much more about them unless > you really want to dig into it. > > * On most Linux systems, run level 2 is multi-user mode, console > only (no GUI). Great for servers. Run level 5 is multi-user mode > with a GUI (launching X11 automatically on boot-up). Your system is > likely in one of these two run levels. > > * To find out which run level your system is in, you could do the > geeky thing and examine /etc/inittab, or you could just run the > "runlevel" command with no arguments. > > Now, back to SysV init... There will be one big /etc/init.d/ > directory containing all of the start/stop scripts for various > services. Yes, there should be a ton of stuff in there. There will > also be several /etc/rc.d/ directories, where "" is a run > level number. Inside /etc/rc.d/ will just be some symlinks to > stuff that the system should run when entering or exiting that > particular run level. It is actually quite organized. > > If, for example, you are in run level 5 and do not want sendmail to > launch on boot, just remove the /etc/rc5.d/S21sendmail symlink. > Likewise, if you do want sendmail to launch on boot, just "ln -s > /etc/init.d/sendmail /etc/rc5.d/S21sendmail" - that is it. > > It may sound confusing, but hop on a SysV init based system and > tinker with it for a few minutes. You will find that it actually > makes a little sense. :) Thank you, Jay. Let me try to understand this: According to my /etc/inittab, I boot into runlevel 3, console/multiuser. Then I type "startx" to go into KDE or whatever. Once I'm in X am I still in runlevel 3? I thought I'd be in runlevel 4 or 5, but when I opened a shell in KDE, the "runlevel" command said I was still in runlevel 3. Do I have to delete or comment-out the symlinks in both runlevel 3 and 4-5? What if I decide to work for awhile in runlevel 1? Will the services start up there? I don't want to have to delete a ton of symlinks in all the runlevels. > It may sound confusing, but hop on a SysV init based system and > tinker with it for a few minutes. You will find that it actually > makes a little sense. :) I've actually spent hours and hours studying this, and tried various little programs to edit the symlinks, and it just seems like a convoluted mess compared to the BSD-style init scripts in Slackware. Just my opinion. Siri Amrit --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss