student wrote:
> J.O. Aho wrote:
>> student wrote:
>>
>>> I thought Gentoo did away with sysvinit-style /etc/rc.d bootup and
>>> shutdown.

No. sysvinit contains /sbin/init and this is vital to a Linux system.

Here's the proceedure:
1. Kernel boots
2. Kernel executes /sbin/init
3. /sbin/init interprets /etc/inittab
4. /sbin/init changes the runlevel and executes the corresponding
command specified in /etc/inittab
5. Etc.

This is the same for any Linux system. sysvinit has no relationship with
/etc/rc.d or /etc/init.d (or any other "init" scripts) except by
association through inittab.

>>> Or has sysvinit been a Gentoo option all along but just wasn't aware
>>> of it?

sysvinit is not an option - it's a requirement.

> [snip]
>
> Hence my question: why does installing
> sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.10-r6
>
> entail installing
>
> sys-apps/sysvinit-2.86

Because sysvinit has been split from the baselayout package as of
>=sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.8-r3 .

> Would sysvinit-2.86 supplant my existing bootup machinery

It *is* part of your existing bootup machinery.

> and, if it would not, why does baselayout-1.11.10-r6 need it?

See above.

At this point I would caution you not to install ~x86 packages unless
you know what you're doing.

Hth,
--
Ben M.