initctl, wrapping, and cruft

[David McCabe <davidmccabe@xxxxxxx>]

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Hello!

I have been using devfs for a while, and initially set it up according 
to Mr. Robbin's instructions 
(http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs4.html). I'm going 
through my system and reconfiguring everything (as a do every six months 
or so because I get tired of all the cruft and want to apply everything 
I've learned in the last six months).

And I noticed how annoying it is to have that init-wrapping script. I 
researched the reason for its existence and found it to be slightly 
absurd: init wants a working /dev before it starts so that it can create 
a pipe called /dev/initctl, which it uses something like other programs 
talking to it.

I'm using a SysV init (which is actually configured more BSD-like), but 
I am really liking Gooch's simpleinit 
(http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rgooch/linux/boot-scripts/index.html). 
I'm setting up some boot scripts for it at the moment.

I want to know, therefore, what prevents us from moving the initctl pipe 
that init creates to some other location, such as /var? Then we could 
simply put the devfs mounting and and /dev-state stuff at the very 
beginning of our boot scripts, and not have the wrapper kluge. It would 
be a one line patch on simpleinit.

Is there anything I don't understand that would make this impractical?

By the way, please CC any replies to my address, because I don't really 
want to subscribe to this list, not being of any help to anyone, and not 
needing a lot of help, etc.

Thanks!
- --
David McCabe
'finger david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx' for PGP key.
Wrfhf ybirf lbh!
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