On Sat, 10 Oct 1998 seebs@plethora.net wrote:

> I often want a machine "partially up".  For instance, I might want
> a machine in the mode where normal services are in place, but "network
> server" stuff is temporarily off.
> 
> Linux systems sometimes use runlevel 5 for "start xdm", which I like.
> 
> The nice thing is the ability to say "runlevel 4 is just like runlevel 3
> except that RADIUS is up in runlevel 4".  Then, if I want to do something
> for which I'd like to shut off RADIUS, I 'init 3' and it DTRT.

I coded up a bit of proof-of-concept stuff for the new NetBSD
startup dependency system that Perry and Matt were doing some work
on. This made the whole concept of `runlevels' obselete by instead
allowing you to turn on and off named daemons or named groups of
daemons. So you wouldn't for example, have to have your radius
server running just to run xdm on that machine as well.

> I don't see the problem with the devices.

The problem with this is it adds a lot of mess to the system for
very little return in functionality on the vast majority of machines.

cjs
--
Curt Sampson  <cjs@portal.ca>  604-257-9400    De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.
Any opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
The most widely ported operating system in the world: http://www.netbsd.org