mr. rich goes SCSI (Got X working!)

[Kragen]

On Mon, 12 Oct 1998 richard.harlan@convergys.com wrote:
> [0] I'm trying to think of a reason that one could not build a GNU/Linux
> system that only has Perl for scripting at boot-time. As it is, in order to
> do anything useful in init scripts, you still have to have cp, rm, ln, mv,
> grep, awk and sed in addition to bash. Why not just use Perl? The only draw
> back I can see is the size of the executable---it would not be appropriate
> for rescue disks (or would it?). Possibly, though, when you add up the
> sizes of all the little utilities used in init scripts, Perl might break
> even.

I've been thinking the same thing, actually.  The system would probably
boot a little faster, too.  (Although the majority of the time my
computer takes to boot, it spends with the kernel waking up and
stretching, before it even starts init.)

Maybe FORTH or Scheme would be a more appropriate language, since they
could easily fit on a rescue disk.

It would be interesting to build a Linux system that had no shells.  ;)

(Another possibility, not recommended for rescue disks: Emacs and elisp
for startup scripts.  This should interest the LispOS crowd!)

Kragen

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
A well designed system must take people into account.  . . .  It's hard to
build a system that provides strong authentication on top of systems that
can be penetrated by knowing someone's mother's maiden name.  -- Schneier