On 05/03/2016 06:10 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
>
> IMHO the package should install [every init]
>

Some time ago I suggested an init-freedom package for that purpose, that
would provide init, and require at least one of the init systems to be
installed, like, e.g., mail-transport-agent does. Then it would propose
you to "use N at next boot" or something useful like that, only for init
systems ready to use (i.e., you need to configure them properly first)

The prospects sounds interesting but usually one would use one init
system per physical host, and testing can be done with virtual machines.
When test on real hardware becomes necessary, having this might help.

Using the alternatives system such program might be even simple to
implement.

More generally I'd like to consider "init" as a set of components you
can combine to form "the init process":

- boot
- PID1 (init proper)
- process management
- device management

Each component can be covered by one or more programs (e.g., systemd
does all these an more, openrc can do PID1 and process management, or
one or the other, and use another program to complete the other task,
e.g., sinit + openrc instead of openrc alone)

init-freedom could plug in to grub or EFI and allow switching the init=
kernel command at boot time according to available and configured init
systems on the host.

==
hk

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