Epoch 1.0 Released
New alternative for init comes with a small footprint and minimal configuration.
The American developer Ben Dibell has released version 1.0 of the minimalist Epoch init system.
According to the project website, Dibell created Epoch because he wanted "...something small and unintrusive that doesn't splatter its
configuration all over the disk, yet has enough features to be good enough for a desktop system."
Aside from a Linux kernel 2.6 system to run on, the only dependencies associated with Epoch are libc and pthreads, although the developer recommends a Bourne-compatible shell. The system is contained in a single binary file.
The command "epoch" is used to start and stop, enable, and disable services, display status, and change the run level. The init system tracks the PIDs of all services and supports PID files.
More information and the Epoch 1.0 C source code is available at the project website. The author has released his work into the public domain.
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