We're in an era where inetds are less and less a central piece of a standard Linux distribution. Inetd was used in the past because many servers lacked a proper standalone mode, or were too memory-hungry.
Most machines nowadays have enough memory, and most daemons provide a standalone mode (I mean who configures apache as an inetd service ?). Looking at my own case, my sole inetd uses are for bitlebee which nowadays provides a standalone mode, and git-daemon because I'm too lazy to write an init script. Just looking at the packages requiring an inet superserver, you'll see that it's probably that nowadays users don't need a superserver at all[0]. I'm wondering if making super servers become optionnal wouldn't be a worthy goal for squeeze. Note: I'm not saying we should remove super servers from Debian, I'm just saying it's not as central as it used to be. [0] grep-dctrl -sSource,Package -FDepends inet-superserver gives: Package: afbackup Source: amanda Package: amanda-common Source: atftp Package: atftpd Package: bidentd Package: bozohttpd Package: dbskkd-cdb Source: fai Package: fai-quickstart Package: fakepop Source: firebird2.0 Package: firebird2.0-classic Source: firebird2.1 Package: firebird2.1-classic Source: linux-ftpd Package: ftpd Source: linux-ftpd-ssl Package: ftpd-ssl Package: gtalk Package: gwhois Source: heimdal Package: heimdal-kdc Source: heimdal Package: heimdal-servers Source: heimdal Package: heimdal-servers-x Source: inetutils Package: inetutils-talkd Source: inetutils Package: inetutils-telnetd Source: uw-imap Package: ipopd Package: isdnutils Source: isdnutils Package: isdnvboxserver Source: krb5 Package: krb5-ftpd Source: krb5 Package: krb5-rsh-server Source: krb5 Package: krb5-telnetd Source: ldm Package: ldm-server Package: leafnode Source: ltsp Package: ltsp-server-standalone Package: micro-httpd Package: midentd Package: node Source: cernlib Package: pawserv Package: pidentd Source: proftpd-dfsg Package: proftpd-basic Package: qpopper Source: qpopper Package: qpopper-drac Source: remctl Package: remctl-server Source: rsh-redone Package: rsh-redone-server Source: netkit-rsh Package: rsh-server Package: rstatd Source: netkit-rwall Package: rwalld Package: sendfile Package: skksearch Package: sn Source: samba Package: swat Source: netkit-ntalk Package: talkd Source: netkit-telnet Package: telnetd Source: netkit-telnet-ssl Package: telnetd-ssl Source: netkit-tftp Package: tftpd Package: uucp Source: uw-imap Package: uw-imapd Source: wipl Package: wipl-client-inetd Package: xfingerd Package: xtel -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O madco...@debian.org OOO http://www.madism.org
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