> >>>>> "Chris" == Chris G Demetriou <Chris_G_Demetriou@ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu> writes:
> 
>     >> 3. /etc/rc.d/*
> 
>     Chris> I prefer this one, + /etc/rc.conf.
> 
> Why not just leave things the way they've always been? It works just
> fine. It ain't broke, so don't fix it.

In a nutshell: you're wrong, it is "broke."

(1) currently, there is no way to do shutdown scripts _at all_,
without putting a wrapper around 'shutdown' which cannot implement
shutdown's 'normal' semantics unless it, itself, implements all of
shutdown's functionality.

(2) There is no way for users to put 'things' (where 'things' may be
'commands to add routes,' 'commands to start up local daemons,' etc.)
into arbitrary places in the startup process without modifying /etc/rc
(and thus adding all of the attendant headaches when trying to update
/etc/rc to the version in a new release of the system).

(3) with any 'monolithic rc' scheme, there's no way for packages to
automatically add startup and shutdown scripts.  You might argue that
you could run something like that from rc.local, but then you get into
the situation where you need something (e.g. packet filter/firewall)
startup to happen before something in /etc/rc, and you're screwed.
Also, this has all of the maintenance hassles for rc upgrades
mentioned in (2).



cgd