A function add_hook can be called from functions.d to register a hook function. The existing hooks are based on suggestions from Michael Towers (larch) and on the implementation of initscripts-extras-fbsplash which currently uses the strings passed to stat_busy and stat_done for this. More hooks can be added if requested. The implementation uses associative arrays and will thus only work with bash 4 or later. The changes have been commited to initscripts.git, but have not yet been extensively tested, only basic functionality tests have been performed: http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=initscripts.git;a=commitdiff;h=cfabb85924f3... This should make life easier for larch (not exactly sure what they need it for) and will make initscripts-extras-fbsplash much cleaner to implement. Don't hesitate to request more hooks here. A description of the existing hooks is in rc.d/functions.