borislav wrote: How about publishing the source for /bin/init? Then we can stop playing silly games with shell scripts...

That source should be available. But, a study of /etc/inittab will be more profitable. That file (text) provides all the info init uses to bring up the system.

http://www.linuxcentral.com/linux/man-pages/init.8.html
http://www.linuxcentral.com/linux/man-pages/inittab.5.html

Take a look at these man pages for more info.

Glenn