[TUHS] Ultrix - why "setld"?

[Chris Hanson via TUHS]

I’ve just set up my DECstation 5000/240 and gone through a basic installation of Ultrix 4.5 on an emulated RZ26 on a GBSCSI. It actually feels really fast, too, which is impressive given that it’s a 40MHz R3000 with 40MB of RAM.

It’s been a few years so I forgot how to install additional packages on it, and had to look it up: Turns out /etc/setld is how you install packages. Can anyone describe the thinking behind this? I know everyone was doing their own thing for package installation back then, but still...

  -- Chris