>It's practically impossible to approach a strange machine and figure
>out what it does on startup.   The scripts in /etc/init.d, because
>they are independent, have to do quite a bit more than would be done
>in /etc/rc.local.   So each script winds up being about the size of
>/etc/netstart on NetBSD.

On the SGI I have here on my desk:

-rwxr--r--    1 root     sys          627 Oct 22 19:00 acct
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys          500 Oct 22 18:57 announce
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         2712 Oct 22 19:00 audit
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys          197 Oct 22 18:57 auto_ipaddress
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         2989 Oct 22 18:57 autoconfig
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys          302 Oct 22 19:08 bsdlpr
-rwxr--r--    1 root     sys          667 Oct 22 20:03 cachefs
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         2541 Oct 22 19:09 cadmin

They seem reasonable sized.  For the added flexability of adding and
removing packages, I could deal with them being larger.

>Then, you can't edit the whole startup process at once - you have to
>grep around for the daemon you're trying to control, then edit the
>file that controls it, and usually figure out the entire functioning
>of that file and then touch yet another file somewhere else to make
>the change you want.  The learning curve is obscene.

I would argue that using
	pkgadd foo
is simplier than
	tar zxvf package.tar.Z
	vi /etc/rc.local

and day.  If the user needs to edit the startup file, it is NO HARDER
than editing /etc/rc.local, and if they muck it up, they loose one
package, not the whole system.

--Michael

--
Michael Graff <explorer@flame.org>        NetBSD is the way to go!
PGP key on a key-server near you!         Rayshade the world!