HEAD'S UP: Removal of the old rc system

The historical BSD boot scripts in /etc have been replaced with the next
generation version imported from NetBSD, heavily modified and improved
upon. All functionality from the previous system has been preserved, and
users should still customize their system boot with the familiar methods,
rc.conf, rc.conf.local, rc.firewall, sysctl.conf, etc.

The rcNG system was the default in 5.0-RELEASE, and has been the default
in FreeBSD-current since September 2002. Therefore we don't anticipate any
problems for the vast majority of our users. However, users who have
customized their rc scripts should be aware that the following files have
been removed from the base:

rc.atm
rc.devfs
rc.diskless1
rc.diskless2
rc.i386
rc.alpha
rc.amd64
rc.ia64
rc.sparc64
rc.isdn
rc.network
rc.network6
rc.pccard
rc.sendmail
rc.serial
rc.syscons
rc.sysctl

Your personal versions of these files will not be removed, so you can
continue to use them. However, you should take great care when updating,
especially when using mergemaster, since the compatibility code that
utilizes these old scripts has also been removed.

For the vast majority of users who have not modified their rc scripts, the
new version of mergemaster has an option to move the old versions out of
/etc so that you can remove them completely at your convenience.

Users who would like to learn more about the new system should take a look
at the man page for rc.subr(8). If you have any problems, concerns, or
suggestions regarding the new system, please feel free to send an e-mail
to freebsd-current_at_freebsd.org and/or freebsd-rc_at_yahoogroups.com.

Please join me in congratulating the very hard working rcNG team on this
major accomplishment. I'd also like to extend my thanks to the other
committers who've contributed to the success of this project. A lot of
people have contributed code, ideas, and time to test patches. It's
greatly appreciated.

Enjoy!

Doug

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