On starting the Hurd console by default

[Michael Banck <mbanck@debian.org>]

Hello,

I think now is the time to think about how we want to go about starting
the Hurd console by default on bootup.

Some things to consider:

 - What slot should it take in the /etc/rc2.d/ hierachy?

I think the Hurd console can currently[1] be considered similar to the X
display managers. gdm has S99, I think the Hurd console should have the
same value.

 - What should the name of the init script be? What should the output
   be?

My proposal would be 'hurd-console'. 'hurd' seems to generic for my
taste. Likewise, 'Starting Hurd console... done' looks like a decent
message to me. Maybe just use 'Starting console... done'?

 - Should the stop() action be a no-opt? 

Currently, I believe running /etc/init.d/hurd-console stop would result
in screen corruption or similar (needs to be investigated). Marco has
submitted a patch for handling signals, is this enough? (probably also
needs investigation)

 - What about the console options?

The usual way for init scripts to be configurable seems to be through
something like /etc/default/hurd-console, which has key=value pairs and
gets sourced by the init script. This might be a good interim solution
until we cook up something better[2]. We could add a variable for the
mouse repeater options and so on.

 - Can we just run start-stop-daemon, or do we need some fancy stuff in
   the start() and stop() routines?

No idea about that. Jeff had an init script in a not-released Hurd
package once, but I don't think I have that still around.

 - Anything else I missed?


Michael

-- 
[1] i.e., until it also handles system messages, like the bootup
messages, at which point it should be moved to the beginning of the
bootup.
[2] e.g., coordinate with the X strike force and the Linux console-tools
maintainers to have common debconf settings for the keyboard layout and
mouse options.