SysVinit problem

[dravenloft]

I decided to try out upstart since I've been reading about how it actually works and boots Linux up so much faster, blah blah.... Find there's an x86 version in debian/experimental and fetch it... I can always go back right?

Well, it sets up and works alright, I'm just not at all impressed... all it really seemed to do was load everying in a different order and make it so I could log in sooner, but without any services running yet. Reminded me of bloody WinXP. So I install sysvinit back onto the system...... here's where the fun starts:
/dev/initctl apparently got removed by upstart's uninstall and couldn't be set back up by sysvinit's install.
I'd THOUGHT perhaps this was just something upstart'd done to udev so I just reboot, figuring udev'll recreate it (ok, NOW that I say it I realise it didn't make sense... but that's not the point) needless to say the kernel gets done doing it's little start up bit and then goes to hand the system over to init... and panics and dies.

How does one, when their Debian/etch install is unbootable fix SysV?

[iwanabeguru]

try this
boot with a live cd
mount the root file system
chroot
apt-get install --reinstall base-config

[dravenloft]

Tried it.
1) apt-get and dpkg don't work in chroot
2) base-config is not part of etch

[dravenloft]

In desperation tried opening the sysv packages in midnight commander and just copied the contents to the system..... rebooted trying to boot the native install.... it worked. Really neat part is that it somehow boots faster now.