In playing around with the net-online initscript, I've created a little system that I think will be an improvement over the current initscript organization in Funtoo. Here's how it works:

• There is a new runlevel called wan-services.
• The improved net-online initscript is part of this runlevel, and is set to run first.
• The wan-services runlevel is a sub-runlevel (stacked on top of) the default runlevel.
• There is a new initscript called "wan" which is part of the default runlevel and runs last. It's job is to change the runlevel to wan-services after default is done. This is done in the background (so there is no delay in seeing a terminal prompt.)

The net result (no pun intended, and intended) of these changes are: your default runlevel is there to get you to a console prompt relatively quickly. You can add non-network dependent services to the default runlevel. You can also add services that listen on all interfaces so will automatically be available when the network is fully online (or if they take too long to start, just add them to wan-services instead. You'll see why in a bit.). But anything that takes a while, say ntp-client, or other Internet-dependent services – those you now add to wan-services.

The benefit of this approach: you get a quick login prompt at the console. While the console login prompt is being displayed, network continues to start up in the background, and these services come online as they are able. In the mean time, you can still log in to the console. Isn't this how net-online should work? Yes, this is how it should work. Now it does.