[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#805487: sysvinit: consider moving invoke-rc.d, update-rc.d and service to src:init-system-helpers

[Andreas Henriksson]

Hello Michael Biebl.

Thanks for your interest and feedback.

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 09:02:41PM +0100, Michael Biebl wrote:
[...]
> What's the rationale for using a separate binary package instead of just
> putting them into init-system-helpers?

It's just an initial draft, nothing set in stone. Just wanted to get
things off the ground. May we should put it in init-system-helpers.

My idea was that putting it in a separate package (for now) would
give me full flexibility in fixing up any complicated dependency
stuff and not having to think too much about what the purpose is
of the existing init-system-helpers package and what makes so
many packages depend on it.... basically, I limited the scope to
something I could pull off on my limited time yesterday evening.

I'll try to find time to research init-system-helpers and the
reverse dependencies reasons soon.

Anyones recommendations are very much welcome. Do you recommend
init-system-helpers over separate init-tools? what pros and cons
do you see?

Please feel free to suggest in statement form instead of in
question form. ;)

> 
> Regarding update-rc.d: Should we add a hard dependency on insserv for
> the sysv-rc path or will we add a graceful fallback?

Haven't had time to investigate deeper, but my theoretical answer for
now would be that I think insserv is a sysvinit (and similar) specific
tool. Just like systemctl is only executed if available, I think
that's how insserv should be handled. Then it should be the respective
init systems choice if they want it pulled in or not.
Eg. sysvinit will pull it in, so will file-rc, and even systemd gets
the option of pulling it in as long as systemd maintainers feels
it's useful to keep sysvinit compatibility (and then can take a
decision on their own once they want to change it).

Will need to investigate this all further... this is just a very first
initial draft. Nothing is decided. Just experimenting for now and
sharing my work.

Regards,
Andreas Henriksson