Michael Adams wrote:
Late post, sorry.
The system loads the kernal and all its modules then runs init using the
info it finds in /etc/inittab. This file is text and mostly human
readable. As with most config files comment lines start with #.
Once the system has read which mode (0 to 6) it is meant to start into
then it goes to the relevant folder and reads each file in numeric
order.
- Thus if it is starting in graphics mode (5), it looks into
/etc/rc.d/rc5.d/ and runs these files in order. Each is a
shell script and mainly they each run further scripts found in
/etc/rc.d/init.d/
Pay particular attention to the last one in the directory.
/etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S99local Read this one if you wish to add to the
startup.
Also note that /etc/rc5.d/ is a link to /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/ (windows
refugees read "shortcut") and /etc/init.d/ is a link to
/etc/rc.d/init.d/. These are not there for your convenience really but
for backwards compatability.
All taken together they equate to autoexec.bat and win.ini but allow
more flexibility. You could if you wish have several new rcX.d
directories which allow you to start / stop / restart in different
modes. You only need to append the new ones to /etc/inittab in the
apropriate place, create (or copy) the rc7.d directory and edit. To
switch from one mode to another type "init X" with "X" being the mode
you wish to switch too. The more useful ones are
0 = shutdown
1 = single user startup
3 = command line startup
5 = normal graphics startup
6 = reboot
Most of the tricks performed by webmin and other config GUI tools
rewrite these startup scripts.
Also in a terminal type:-
man man
man init
man dmesg
Purists will probably have a far more thorough explanation but these are
the main startup script files. Things that get loaded into the kernal
during its boot phase enter into the realm of FM, and i don't pretend to
understand this fully (read/var/log/dmesg to see what happens then).
this might seem quite unrelated .. but I can't feel that I get the
logic of these placings yet ... eg ... what does rc.d stand for? how did
it ocme to that? Also, maybe you know of some good (==non formal &
intuitive in my case) introductory doc on why things are aranged the way
they are in Linux ... eg. .. de standard directory structure. This is
soemthing I got used pretty hard with when coming to Linux ... and even
now I don't really get the stuff ... like the sense of why /etc/rc.d ...
I mean explanations like "/etc is meant for configuration stuff" ....
also I'm still quite confused with where I should install stuff ... is
it /usr/local ... or is it /usr/share/local ... and so on ...
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