I've had it both ways. I remember when you didn't have a graphical splash screen or even an itemized service list as they start -- the init scripts just blurted whatever they wanted.
RedHat (not RHEL) 6.2 or 7 was the first linux distro I saw that gave you a neat and tidy "Starting sendmail... [OK]" type itemized init output.
Come to think of it, a simple pass/fail output would be preferable, or even a pass-or-detailed-failure-message system.
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