%% "Noah L. Meyerhans" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: nlm> Basically, I seem to recall the sysvinit maintainer saying that nlm> this is done simply to maximize the flexibility for the admin. nlm> Where other distributions and sysvinit based Unixes define some nlm> policy regarding what is started at what runlevel, Debian chose nlm> to start with all multi-user runlevels identical and let the nlm> admin customize them.
I don't get it. The admin is just as free to customize the runlevels in all the other sysv based Unixen as she is to customize the Debian ones. It may seem at first glance to be a simple rule, "everything starts at all runlevels 2-5", rather than trying to choose which runlevels do what, but I think there are problems with this approach from a usability and user expectation standpoint. Consider that if you go look on comp.os.linux.x you'll see about ten messages just this week advising people to boot to runlevel 3 if they want to start up without XDM running. That is the right answer and works everywhere... except Debian. In Debian, there is _no_ way to boot without XDM without reconfiguring your system in some manner (removing XDM, or using update-rc.d or rm/mv to modify your init setup). I just don't think abdicating the responsibility of defining a basically useful set of runlevels is in the best interests of users. Any user who knows enough to want to provide a specific set of runlevels for her system is certainly advanced enough to figure out how to do it. The default setup should provide a usable and useful range of behaviors for different runlevels--at the least it should be close enough to "standard" UNIX that users can get expected behavior when following general advice for UNIX, and not require that everyone include Debian-specific caveats in their answers. My $0.02. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Network Management Development "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
