Bug 5353 – interactive mode during boot process

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description SpanKY 2002-07-21 15:58:13 UTC]

[16:42] <Silen> do u know how to run the boot process in interactive mode?
[16:42] <Silen> as in RedHat or mandrake...u hit i during boot...and u have to 
choice of 
[16:42] <Silen> loading each and every service/module...
[16:42] <Silen> as and when it loads

adding onto this, the interactive mode would show a tree of stuff based upon 
the 'use' and 'need' variables

could approach it 2 ways ...
(1) asking you Y/N as gentoo boots, showing only what gentoo is gonna run
(2) show a pretty tree of everything thats gonna load, and what is going to 
load next (still only get a Y/N at each step)
(2a) maybe add ability to scroll up/down in tree and start/stop services ...

[Comment 1 Martin Schlemmer (RETIRED) 2002-07-22 13:56:25 UTC]

And you want to do all this with bash, and keep it at the current 5 times
faster than Mandrake/Redhat's stuff ?

[Comment 2 SpanKY 2002-07-22 14:04:40 UTC]

what can i say, im greedy :D

(1) == should have
(2) == really fucking cool if we had

so that shows a little priority for this ;)

[Comment 3 Martin Schlemmer (RETIRED) 2002-07-22 15:10:13 UTC]

Hehe, ok.

To be honest, I guess I am still old skool, but if I have a boot problem,
I usually solve it with the following at lilo prompt: linux init=/bin/bash

This does not say it is the best solution for all.  I have really put some
effort into getting depscan.sh and rc-envupdate.sh a bit faster after needed
updates that slowed them down again, and would like to do the same for the
rest.

I guess what kept our initscript apart, was dependencies, and their 
speed/simplicity, but I will have a look at interactive startup, and
how much overhead it will take.  Maybe adding a tool to simulate
bootup after changes from a already booted system can take care
of (2).

[Comment 4 SpanKY 2002-07-22 15:44:06 UTC]

i agree with you that the only real way to fix a broke system is with 
init=/bin/bash, im just posting something i saw on irc that i thought would be 
neat ;)

[Comment 5 Henti Smith 2002-09-22 11:28:26 UTC]

howdy.

I do think this is a valid optiont o have since most users follow the intall 
instructions and use grub not lilo ... and I've still not figuired out how to 
send stuff via grub or even boot init single user mode. 

folowing Mandrake's example give the (l)user 2 seconds to press (x) key to go 
into interactive mode which lists single user mode, confirmation of boot 
process etc etc whichever features are suggested .. 

That way .. if you don't need interactive .. you sacrifice 2 seconds .. 
for those anal enought add an entry in /etc/conf.d/rc to enable the prompt so 
they don't have the 2 second stop .. 

Just some thoughs .. 
Comments ? 

Henti 

[Comment 6 Paul Pacheco 2004-12-22 15:46:14 UTC]

Created attachment 46669 [details, diff]
interactive.diff

patch to make boot interactive.

press I to enter interactive mode, for each service you will get a menu. where
you can run it, skip it, resume normal boot or get a shell (with root password)

[Comment 7 Roy Marples (RETIRED) 2005-08-14 12:17:42 UTC]

Applied to our svn repo with a few modifications. Thanks for the patch :)

Will be in baselayout-1.12.0_pre6

[Comment 8 Roy Marples (RETIRED) 2005-08-22 04:14:14 UTC]

pre6 is out

[Comment 9 Mike Hunt 2009-09-08 00:40:10 UTC]

I tried i and I - no joy :(

# qlist -ICv {baselayout,openrc}
sys-apps/baselayout-2.1.5
sys-apps/openrc-0.5.0-r2