Re: runit pblms on Mandrake

[Laurent Bercot <ska-supervision@skarnet.org>]

> cp /package/admin/runit/command/runit-init /sbin/init
> 
> and must copy runit itself into /sbin.
> 
> cp /package/admin/runit/command/runit /sbin/

 Why perform those steps at all ?
 Copying binaries into /sbin creates potential problems:
  - it breaks the rule of "/[s]bin and /usr/[s]bin belong to the OS
and its native package manager"
  - it duplicates binaries
  - it is non-standard and non-portable.

 In other words, by copying binaries into /sbin, you're making your
system less clean, more error-prone and more difficult to debug.

 There are two documented, supported, portable, whatever, ways of
accessing the runit binaries: in /command and in
/package/admin/runit/command. Isn't that enough ?
Using " init=/command/runit-init" within your bootloader will start
runit-init as process 1 all right, and you don't have to copy it
anywhere.

 You may have chosen to copy the binaries into /sbin because /package
is a link to /usr/local/package, or something of the kind, which is not
mounted at boot-time. This is not a good idea. Since the runit package
is a basic system package, it should reside entirely within the root
filesystem. Don't make /package and /command links to something that
is not mounted at boot time, but forests of symlinks pointing to the
real location of every package. A tool such as
http://www.skarnet.org/software/symtools/update-symlinks.html
may help you.

-- 
 Ska