It seems to me that the language PERL is ideal for implementing many
    of the pieces that are currently missing from Linux.  For example,
    init, getty, login, shutdown, halt, cron, inetd, etc. could very
    easily be written in PERL rather than C.  Most OS-support programs
    (including the ones mentioned previously) are not time critical.  They
    run very infrequently, and the performance degradation (if there is
    any) should be inconsequential.

Can't do standard library calls in perl :( - 
init, shutdown are definates 
getty - maybe                   
cron - probably want to use alarms for the next event, so no
inetd - we want to use listen, so no


    Third, I find PERL a *much* better script language than either sh or
    csh.

Agreed!  Let's get perl for Linux.

    Finally, PERL scripts are architecture-independent.  If Linux ever
    gets ported to multiple architectures (which I am guessing it will),
    all support programs written in PERL port with no effort at all.

Non-issue : any of the programs mentioned above, halt excepted (If we
are to code in an infinite loop with interrupts disabled) will go
no deeper than mayuking system calls.    
 
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