[ale] compiled system calls versus shell scripts

[Christopher Bergeron]

Does anyone know if I would get a speed increase in my startup scripts 
by converting them to a binary?  Essentially, I'm trying to reduce my 
boot time by running my startup commands in parallel.  I stripped my 
startup scripts down to 1 file and I've appended the & on most of the 
commands (modprobes, ifconfig eth0 up, etc) in an attempt to speed 
things up.  But what I'm wondering is if I create a simple C program 
that just does:
void main() {
  system("modprobe whatever &");
  system("ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.4 &");
}

Would this give me a faster boot during this phase?  I'm thinking about 
doing this and replacing my /sbin/init altogether.

I know there are already packages out there that do this, but I'm doing 
it myself as more of a learning excercise.  I've also heard of using a 
Makefile to control startup, but that's a bit beyond me at this point.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
-CB