X startup stuff - questions

[Adi Linden]

Hi Ralph,

> > > 3. mknod /dev/mouse c 10 1
> > 
> > Wouldn't the above be part of the installation process of putting X onto
> > the flash device/into the filesystem?
> > 
> 
> I hadn't thought of that...the /dev/mouse /dev/usb ... stuff that X uses
> would be part of the X package. Good fit!
> 
> I did notice that the normal RH devices directory 
> contains an ungodly number of nodes in it.  Also, configuring the
> _base_filesystem takes a while because of the large number of files included in
> this.
> 
> Would it make sense to have a _devices package ? This would shrink the size of
> _base_filesystem file and configuring both would be quicker.

There isn't much else to the base_filesystem other than the devices. Also,
the devices included in the base_filesystem are a subset of what's
included with a 'normal' Linux install. Unusual devices are usually
included with the individual packages. I.e. a kernel image with DOC
support also includes /dev/fla0, etc...

> > > 4. insmod unix.o 
> > > 5. xfs -droppriv -daemon -port -1
> > > 6. XF86_SVGA
> > 
> > I would do a startup script to run from the etc/rcS.d directory. All
> > scripts in there are run automatically at startup in alphanumerical order.
> > To have good control over what runs when they're numbered, like: 05modules
> > 20firewall, etc....
> >
> 
>  Oh...there they be...in my standard RH, I have XFS and gpm(which I don't know
> if I need or not).  Now I just have to go back and dig into the magic that is
> RH Init stuff...insmod doesn't seem to get called...geeze, could this *be* more
> confusing? (QNX has a very clean startup process conpared to this, but I guess
> thats the price you pay for flexibility!)

Yup, except the RH startup is quite complex. A lot of the stuff included
in /etc/rc.d/init.d/gpm and /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs can be stripped. For
example, with PeeWeeLinux I don't expect daemons to be shutdown
gracefully. Mind you, for compatibility reasons rcS calls all startup
script with the 'start' command line argument. Also, RH uses some
functions included in /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions. Either the startup
scripts have to be rewritten or the .../fuctions script also has to be
copied to /etc/rcS.d/. Makes sense? To recap for a really quick and dirty
start just copy the following files to /etc/rcS.d:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
/etc/rc.d/init.d/gpm
/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs

For a PeeWeeLinux package I would remove the functions script and rewrite
gpm and xfs to not rely on functions and to simply start the service, none
of the other functions.

TTYL,
Adi

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