network services at boot (was Re: Boot charting)

On Mon, 14 Nov 2005, Jeremie Corbier wrote:

> Matthew East a écrit :
> > 
> > This to me would make more sense than running it at boot when loads of
> > people don't have the internet up. In many cases, the ntpdate services
> > doesn't fail quickly: it can keep searching for ages!
> > 
> > Probably this idea has occurred to you guys before and you've rejected
> > it for some reason, if so, please ignore me. But I think on the face of
> > things it would be a sensible solution.
> 
> It would be possible to use ntpd too. Think about guys who don't
> shutdown their computers for months :)

ntpdate running at boot is better (for me) than yet-another-daemon
running on my box all the time.

Couldn't one check (via hal or something) if there is life (twinkly lights)
on the network port before trying ntpdate and dhcpclient ?

Cheers,    Andy!