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<N>.d/ directories, where "<N>" is a run
> level number. Inside /etc/rc<N>.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
(text/plain)