[MacPorts] #36770: Need for a fix regarding mechanism for startupitem handling

[MacPorts]

#36770: Need for a fix regarding mechanism for startupitem handling
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  Reporter:  mk@…    |      Owner:  macports-tickets@…
      Type:  defect  |     Status:  new
  Priority:  Normal  |  Milestone:
 Component:  base    |    Version:  2.1.2
Resolution:          |   Keywords:
      Port:          |
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Comment (by ryandesign@…):

 They aren't handling the same thing, but I agree one of them could be
 removed.

 `startupitem_type` is a setting users can set in macports.conf to indicate
 what type of startupitem they want a port that installs a startupitem to
 install. The default ever since Tiger (the oldest OS X version MacPorts
 now supports) is "launchd" which installs a launchd plist in
 /Library/LaunchDaemons. The other option is "systemstarter" which installs
 a script in /Library/StartupItems but there is no reason why anyone would
 want to do this today and we should remove this capability from MacPorts.
 Finally, this can be set to "none", and historically, this was what you
 did on secondary MacPorts installations or in other circumstances when for
 whatever reason you did not want startupitems installed.

 When startupitem_type is launchd, in fact MacPorts doesn't install the
 plist directly in /Library/LaunchDaemons; rather, it installs it in
 ${prefix}/etc/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.${name} and then makes a symlink
 to it in /Library/LaunchDaemons. `startupitem_install` is a new setting
 available in recent MacPorts versions, which lets a user indicate that
 they do not want that symlink to be created. This is probably the setting
 we should keep, and remove `startupitem_type`.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/36770#comment:1>
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