Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: renaming "rc" binary in OpenRC

[Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org>]

On 12/12/2013 05:28 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 3:47 PM, Chris Reffett <creffett@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> The idea of running a sed on inittab in an ebuild, no matter what the
>> context, terrifies me. Perhaps we can ease this in slowly by renaming rc ->
>> openrc and symlinking rc -> openrc and making a release with that change
>> concurrent with a news item? Or even just do that in the ebuild rather than
>> in the actual sources. I don't think Debian will keel over and die if it
>> takes a little extra time for the change to go through, and it beats a ton
>> of broken systems.
> 
> ++
> 
> No reason the symlink couldn't be done in the ebuild either - which
> keeps the package itself clean.  There could be news to clean up
> inittab and such, and then perhaps down the road the compat symlink
> could be removed.
> 
> Nice to see interest in Debian (granted, I know there was interest
> quite a while back).  Having more and better options is just good for
> everybody - I'd like to see OpenRC become the best traditional-style
> service manager around (though honestly I'd be hard-pressed to think
> of any that are quite as good already).
> 
> I think one thing that would be nice to dream about someday would be a
> systemd-compatibility init.d script.  That would be symlinked to a
> service name just like a typical network interface script, and would
> look for a unit file and interpret it (perhaps just taking a path from
> conf.d).  I'd think it wouldn't be hard to do, setting aside the more
> active-management features of systemd.
> 

Well, given that systemd unit files don't express dependencies ...

I've thought about it and can't figure out a way to make mixed-mode work
sanely, at all. You'd have to either manually order the startup
sequence, or annotate the unit files with dependency info.

Plus you'd need some machinery like socket-activation proxies or you're
throwing away even more (to the point where the unit file is just a way
to run an executable)

I don't think this can be done in a way that adds value to users.