> either you add more programs to / to enable you to reconfigure you rc
> environment, or you _can't_ do it w/o mounting /usr.  which is a big
> lose -- you may not have /usr exactly because the rc scripts are
> hosed.

Use vi.   The way the system I suggested works, you have a
machine-generated but completely human-editable /etc/rc.

> also, i do NOT want to be running a script or program my startup files
> that can possibly reorder them.

Chris, if you use /etc/init.d, the installer gets to choose the number
that it puts on the files there.   Isn't this the moral equivalent of
a script that reorders your /etc/rc?

> I don't want to even take the _chance_ that installing JoeBob's
> package to potentially reorder all of my rc scripts, since it had some
> bogus dependencies.

Don't see how this would happen without you knowing about it.   The
only way it could happen is if JoeBob's package claimed to provide
something already provided by a different package - e.g., name service
or routing.   If JoeBob's package tries to supplant your existing name
server, you should at least get a warning message and a request for
confirmation.   But in order for this system to work, we have to have
a registry of provide/require names with documentation as to what they
do.   If JoeBob's package replaces named, it's probably because it's a
name server too, and you wanted it.

Anyway, Chris, you're probably one of the people who hacks /etc/rc
anyway.   What do you care?   The problem I'm trying to solve is how
to allow a naive system administrator to pop things into /etc/rc, not
how to allow Chris Demetriou to do it.   If that's not a problem that
we collectively think is worth solving, I guess that's fine, though.

			       _MelloN_