> I have used this on SGI machines and I like it for the reasons you
> listed.

I have had it inflicted upon me by SGI machines and I loathe it.

If you really want it, you can just replace /etc/rc with

cd /etc/rc.d
for i in `ls -1`
do
	sh $i
done

> SGI machines also allow you to check and turn on/off various optional
> services via commands.

> They have also broken up their config file equivalent into littler
> files.  You just move a file containing a single vector line
> into/outof the config dir, rebuild the kernel and reboot.  This
> allows you to add/delete drivers and (even) other subsystems real
> easily.

This too I loathe.  In both cases, not because the underlying idea is
bad, but because it is invariably implemented with a lot of hidden (and
undocumented) magic.  The idea seems, in both cases, to be to make it
easy to do changes that SGI thinks you should maybe want to do, and
make it extremely hard, borderline impossible, to do anything else.

Now, it may be possible to do this while still retaining the full
generality we have now.  But I'm skeptical; I won't believe it till I
see it.

> Both of these ideas allow one to customize a standard release to a
> great extent and without having to learn a whole bunch or edit any
> standard files.

This is good?  Surely you jest.  As a user, the last thing I want is to
have to use a system "configured" by someone with the
proverbially-dangerous little learning; as an admin, the last thing I
want is to inherit such a system.

> There ought to be a set of linkable .o files (or .a) so that local
> customization does not require one to have a complete source
> distribution.

Isn't this what LKMs are for?

> Now that *BSD systems are being used by so many people we need to
> start doing these things that commercial vendors have had to do for
> years.

Surely you jest.  I'm using NetBSD _because_ it doesn't do these things
the commercial vendors have been inflicting on me for years.

In short, if you want commercial-vendor style software...
...you know where to find it.

					der Mouse

			    mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu