> I'd propose: leave the mount ordering alone as long as there
   > is no real solution. /etc/netstart needs to be divided into a
   > "get interfaces and routes up" and a "start pppd" part.
   > Look at FreeBSD - some shell functions to be called at different
   > stages in the startup process are not bad. This doesn't solve
   > the chicken-and-egg-like problems completely, but it might help
   > in the most common cases.
   
   Is there really any reason not to put pppd into /sbin?  It seems like
   the most appropriate place, to be with slattach, ifconfig, ipf even.
   This would solve the existing problem without changing the mount
   order, and may even be helpful to someone trying to start up
   networking with only root.


i think this is actually the solution we need to take, also.  it's
my fault that the pppd called with no /usr mounted exists, and that's
because i run my systems with no /usr filesystem at all (everything
is in / and /var), and thus it "worked for me".  :-(


as you say, slattach & ifconfig are in /sbin, why not pppd ?  more
and more people will be using ppp over slip... the only thing against
it is that it's quite large (384kb on my sparc).  but that's too bad.