On many Linux workstations that operates on LAN's one would like to mount the /usr file system over NFS to save local disk space. I've been using Slackware 3.2 before which handles this nicely, but with RED HAT 5.2 the system uses files from the /usr file system _BEFORE_ the remote disks have been mounted. (Which is not very good. I get errors from linuxconf trying to access libraries that are on the /usr system (which has not been mounted yet). Also on shutdown, a general process TERM / KILL is done _AFTER_ all remote file systems have been unmounted. (This, I believe, should be done earlier, since when RED HAT tries to unmount the remote systems this often fails with a "device busy" message if a user-started daemon or job is still running. Slightly afterwards, RED HAT shuts down RPC, while the backround processes are still using NFS. This results in a system hang, and one more or less has to hard-reboot. Not very good. Regards. Thomas Hellstrvm
what does linuxconf try to use before /usr is mounted?
linuxconf tries to use /usr/lib/libncurses.so.4 If that library is put in /lib, then I get complains about /usr/lib/libgd.so.1 If that library also is put in /lib I get complains about a dictionnary (yes it is spelled that way) not found in /usr/lib/linuxconf. It seems like the dictionary really is needed :-)
When are you getting the errors from linuxconf (when is it getting invoked?)
I'm getting errors after the message about 'starting kerneld' and, I think it's before 'Enabling ipv4 message forwarding', but it coud also be just after this message (I don't have the computer here.). It's definitively before the network card modules are inserted and initialized. /Thomas
fixed in initscripts-3.96-5 (don't run linuxconf if /usr is not there...)