On Fri, 3 Jun 2016 22:36:25 +0100
KatolaZ <katolaz@???> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 03, 2016 at 01:31:59PM -0400, Dan Purgert wrote:
>
> [cut]
>
> > I admit I am just now starting down the rabbit hole of
> > "understanding init systems" ... so this may be a dumb question.
> >
> > Is it possible during setup to choose the init system on the fly? I
> > mean, we can choose Cinnamon / Mate / xfce / etc for the DE as it
> > is (or all of them - although I expect having multiple competing
> > init binaries is bad).
> >
> > Or are the various init systems "too different" from one another to
> > allow this?
>
> The different init system currently available on the market are really
> "too different" to each other, but this does not mean that we
> shouldn't try to find a way of providing the user with the possibility
> of choosing which init system to use at config time, and possibly to
> swap init systems on demand. This will probably require a lot of work,
> but IMHO this is the niche where Devuan has something new to say, and
> to show.

In my opinion, based on the "stuff" needed for Epoch, Runit and s6, I'm
pretty sure you could have packages for each.

The tricky part is that /sbin/init will need to be one or the other.
Other than that, all three (and I assume sysvinit too) could coexist on
a disk, and which you use is simply copying, let's say, init.epoch to
init. My research during the Manjaro Experiments tells me that a mere
symlink from init.epoch to init fails: I don't know why.

Alternately, the init= in grub could be changed, but this is a
GARGANTUAN pain in the butt to do every time.

SteveT

Steve Litt
June 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting: Why Bother?
http://www.troubleshooters.com/twb