[SLUG] OT runlevels was RE: If its not broken, dont (attempt to) fix it?

[aardvark llama]

>Gavin Baker wrote:
> > I wrote:
> > From my solaris sysadmin course notes -- and IIRC this is true for
> > AIX and Slackware -- there are the following Sys V runlevels:
...
>
>Solaris is (almost) pure SYSV, yep.
Not really -- although in this aspect it is. (As I'm sure you know, the 
history of solaris is pure BSD and in general it supports both types 
functions. After 2.5 there was a move towards System V'ness and for init 
this is one that did change.)

>I thought AIX used some special command to handle it's "services" or
>"subsystems".. ya learn something new everyday.
Hmmm. It's not quite as straight forward as I made out. There is not the 
same directory structure as in Sys V but there is an init daemon with run 
levels. In fact in AIX 4.3 there are nine of the blighters. But they 
basically do the same kind of things. (If you want to go to sleep quickly 
tonight try: www.redbooks.ibm.com/SG245139/5139c21.htm.)

>The only runlevels that are the same over all distributions and could >be 
>called "standard" are 0 (halt), 1 (or s or S) Single user mode and 6
>(reboot). I didn't mention them for this reason.
Fair enough. You might admit that they are quite useful to know about 
though.

> > The BSD run levels are remarkably similar.
>Except freeBSD, BSDi, openBSD and netBSD etc, which don't have >runlevels 
>at all...
No, I think this is wrong. Although I will admit it depends on your 
definition of runlevel. All the BSD based systems I've come across all have 
init daemon that *do* have runlevels but rather than looking in 
/etc/rc<nn>.d directories they, in general, look in an rc.d directory that 
contain files call rc<nn>.d. Just because there is not directory structure 
doesn't mean there are *no runlevels at all*.

> > IME then linux distributions like slackware use 5 as the same as 3 > but 
>with  X enabled. Almost.
No. Well, ok, but you are not right historically. My system is based on 
slackware 3 or 4 and the run levels at this time were configured as I 
stated. Although the old slackware system looks a lot more like a BSD init.

> > However, in general -- or at least with commercial unices I have
> > worked with -- the default run level including X is 3.
>Which can be different from unix to unix and linux to linux.
Sure.  However, it is a lot more alike than, say 10 years ago.

> > So, there you go. You pays your money and you take you pick. The > only 
>thing then that puzzles me is the choice by debian to use run > level two 
>as default...
>Why not? :)
I demand the right to be puzzled without reason! ;)

>Whats the point of having a runlevel defined as "Multiuser + NFS" if >the 
>box is never gonna use NFS?
I would point out that NFS is not the *only* file sharing software in the 
world. The Sun orthodoxy would include ethershare, appletalk, samba, or 
whatever and make this at least a run level 3 thing. I think this makes 
sense but YMMV.

>And why define runlevel 5 for the X display manager if you choose to
>startx with "startx" instead of a graphical login, or don't even have >X?
I agree it is arbitary to a degree. Certainly, the boot and shutdown 
sequence has to be correct. Also, there were problems with earlier verions 
of init. See below.

>I guess there is no perfect way, luckily we are free to change it to
>suit.
Sure. (Although, in early slackware you weren't. IIRC there was a bug in 
init and if you but X in anything other than 5 then it went into an infinite 
loop).

>Just because we have a common practice, doesn't mean it's the best
>practice.
Sure. But then again I would like to see you typing fast on a Dvorak 
keyboard...

Anyway, I give up since I'm sure we've bored enough people already.

:)w

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