Description of problem: 'sysctl' is linked against libgpm and libncurses: | $ ldd /sbin/sysctl | libproc.so.2.0.17 => /lib/libproc.so.2.0.17 (0x40032000) | libncurses.so.5 => /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5 (0x4003f000) | libselinux.so.1 => /lib/libselinux.so.1 (0x4007f000) | libc.so.6 => /lib/i686/libc.so.6 (0x40086000) | libgpm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libgpm.so.1 (0x401c1000) | /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) | libm.so.6 => /lib/i686/libm.so.6 (0x401c7000) Since sysctl is started very early (before e.g. NFS is started), this causes problems when /usr is NFS-shared (at least with 'libncurses'). Then sysctl fails to run and important kernel variables will not be initialized so that e.g. network fails to start. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): procps-2.0.17-3.sel
This is still a problem as of Jan 9, 2004 development. Machines that have a saperate /usr partitition give an error messsage during boot when running sysctl.
Fixed in 3.1.15