The default Xandros distribution that is installed on the Eee PC has many standard Unix daemons (these are called services in that other operating system) that are not started on boot.

As an example, we consider cron (for daily/hourly scheduled tasks, see also this cron tutorial) and rc.local (for local tweaks to the OS). The available script files are in the directory /etc/init.d.

If you decide you need to start cron or another daemon on boot, you will need to create the file ”/etc/fastservices”. This file should contain the name of the daemon you want started.

sudo nano /etc/fastservices

Then enter the name of the daemon you want to start one per line. Example:

cron
rc.local

Save the file, reboot and the daemons you entered should start.

Please note that comments are not allowed in that file, because of the way this file is parsed (by /usr/sbin/services.sh). You should put only the name of the services, and nothing more. You can put commands in /etc/rc.local and just add the line rc.local to the fastservices file.