Re: /sbin/fast{boot,halt}

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> But [fasthalt/fastboot are] still around.  I cannot imagine that
> anyone uses them any more, they come from a time when neither fsck -p
> nor (more importantly) the file system "clean" flag existed, [...]

I use them occasionally.  I have a few systems where I'm paranoid
enough to (effectively) add -f to fsck_flags, and fastboot and fasthalt
are useful on those systems when I'm rebooting while doing single-user
work or something.  (On a system with that level of paranoia, I
wouldn't use the fast* version for the final reboot before going back
into production, but I would use it for a quick "okay, this is borked,
let's clear it with a reboot" during hacking on the system.)

> and where a reboot could take a half hour or more if all the fsck's
> were allowed to complete (this was also pre networking, and so
> obviously, pre NFS, so development systems need to have (for the
> time) lots of space with lots of files).

Even post-networking and post-NFS, _some_ systems need to have lots of
disk space.

I suspect your "cannot imagine that anyone uses them any more" is more
a failure of your imagination than an accurate description of current
reality.  Certainly for me it is.  Of course, that is not necessarily
an argument for keeping it in NetBSD; NetBSD hasn't hesitated to break
things I depend(ed) on before.

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