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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!karl From: karl@NeoSoft.com (Karl Lehenbauer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Finer control over system startup behavior; two-disk boot floppy Message-ID: <1992Aug19.155653.20415@NeoSoft.com> Date: 19 Aug 92 15:56:53 GMT Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900 Lines: 26 It seems that SYSV, particularly SCO, has a lot more user-configurable control over how the system starts up, and something like this would be useful for 386BSD. SCO UNIX, for example, has a file, /etc/default/boot, that defines which file to boot, whether or not to boot automatically, whether to prompt for a filename to boot, whether to come up multiuser or not, whether to check filesystems, what device is to be the console, and so forth. Now BSD also has the if-file-exists mechanism for determining whether or not to check the filesystems, and more could be done following that lead. This /etc/default/boot would have to be opened by the second-stage boot code, I'm pretty sure, so it'd have to be looked up with namei and such -- no filesystem available at that point, which is something of a pain. The file, by the way, is formated in VAR=VALUE style. Also there is inittab in System V, which is nice, tho' there isn't much it can do that you can't do from /etc/rc.something, ttydefs, etc. Opinions? -- -- Email info@NeoSoft.com for info on getting interactive Internet access. You will now awaken feeling relaxed and refreshed, remembering everything you've read except the details of the Omega contingency plan.