Add a startup script to your Unix or Linux box

Before running startup scripts, the bootstrap process of getting a kernel loaded and a file system mounted have to take place. I'm not going to go into that. After the kernel is loaded and a file system mounted, the first process started is usually the init program. This is true on the Debian laptop I am writing this article on. The init process has a process ID of 1. It is the First Process. A good way to see this is to run pstree on your Unix system. This what it looks like on my laptop.