@drak loading that page the first I see is a script using depend() - interesting, but can such a mechanism prevent circular dependencies? I think not. Again: it's the services themselves that need to be taken into account, and possibly changed. The more processes you get the greater the chance you'll end up wth non-linear dependencies. Why is (seemingly?) everyone talking about the init system instead of (also) the processes themselves that need to be started and stopped/restarted/reloaded. There is no simple slution, ever.