Hi, since the whole discussion got somehow sidetracked on where and if to install for everybody the rc system specific files for everybody (that should be an implementation detail for the specific dohelper IMHO), I'm back to the other part of it: switching the actual init implementation.
# WHY (not just edit your bootloader) Since efi at least some people started to put in the kernel the bootargs and we have at least few new options brewing for init, some are small impact (bootchar, bb-init-openrc and runit-openrc) some are more invasive (runit and systemd). In those setup changing bootargs requires a kernel rebuild and some effort, while the eselect approach stays completely transparent. For some switch we might not have just to change the init binary bit also to do some other changes (e.g. use a different format for inittab) # KEYPOINTS - /sbin/init (or whatever linux currently calls by default with top priority) should be either a symlink to the actual implementation or a wrapper such as our gcc one. I like better the latter since it is overall safer. The former might or might work since linux has some fallback capabilities but hadn't been tested. - init gets effectively switched only at boot/reboot, eselect init must keep track of the current active init and make sure the current init configuration is used till the system reboots, if we use the wrapper approach, it would pick up what's the new init at boot and that would be enough for simple cases, hooks on reboot are still needed for more complex ones. - we could try to not have the changes to the current init systems ebuild or reduce them to the bare minimum (e.g. not overwrite /sbin/init) # FOCUS My interest is mostly if not all on bb-init-openrc and slightly on runit-openrc. There are enough people involved in systemd and since I still consider it a dangerously frail implementation of a bad idea is better if I do not touch it at all. My system with stock openrc gets from linux start to graphical login in less than 6s and I'm not using Gnome so I do not have any reason to use it beside comparing. lu
