On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:03:50 -0400
Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 03:25:31AM +0800, Joseph A. Dacuma wrote:
> > 
> > > I would be interested in reading a technical comparision of
> > > NetBSD and Debian (not a flame fest or a religious debate) to
> > > understand for example, _why_ the rc system is better than
> > > sysVinit (as implemented by debian), _how_ the kernel differs.
> > >
> > 
> > IMHO, rc system is simpler than Debian's or most GNU/Linux distros'
> > System V Init. Theres no confusing  /etc/init.d and  the numerous
> > links to rcN.d with S or K and XXservice for every run level.
> 
> What isn't clear is what order things happen in the rc system.  For
> example, if I'm (or advising someone on) tracking down a problem
> related to a service in Debian, I can start in single user mode and
> go down the rcS.d links one at a time with the param 'start'.
> Similar if 'something' is doing 'something', I can suggest they go
> through the rc6.d links one at a time until the 'something' stops.  I
> wouldn't yet know how to do that with the rc system.
> 

rc.d files have REQUIRES and PROVIDE lines; these form a partial
ordering.  A command called rcorder turns those into a linear order.
See /etc/rc -- it's invoked by init, and starts everything else.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb