Systemd ... a can of worms

[francois]

Skarnet the author of s6 proposed to the gentoo people to build a simple and transparent software to supercede sysvinit based on s6 According to him systems is too cryptic and excessive for what it should basically do. He says that with s6 he does everything that sysvinit and systems does. He admits that s6 could be modified to be more accessible and invites people from the different distributions to join him to build that new system tool. He is already working on that type of cooperation with the people from Linux from scratch:

[Tonio]

@Francois

I have looked at s6 by skarnet. I like what he says in his site:


http://www.skarnet.org/software/s6/

However, ultimately Brokenman and Fanthom decide for Porteus and Patrick V for Slackware. What would be your personal choice?
BSD Style startup is what I like about Slackware, they are similar except that BSD uses different kernel and ports system now pkg(I have not kept up with this, am behind a bit); Thought about trying out gentoo, but hear that they have systemd stuff too. For me it seems that Slackware and Crux are the final frontier like old Star Trek TV programs!

[fanthom]

systemd is optional on gentoo and for example im still using openrc without problems (speed is not the factor as gentoo is placed on SSD drive).

[francois]

Skarnet the author of s6 stated:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-9 ... rt-25.html
Replacing sysvrc with OpenRC + s6 is the hard (and interesting) part; but once this is done, you won't have a reason to keep sysvinit around.
I wouldn't call sysvinit a "baby". It works, for sure, and it's maintainable, but it's far from perfect. For instance, it polls /dev/initctl every five seconds "to check that it is still there". Yuck.
Eliminating sysvinit can definitely be a follow-up project though, when the OpenRC + s6 infrastructure is running.

[Tonio]

systemd is optional on gentoo and for example im still using openrc without problems (speed is not the factor as gentoo is placed on SSD drive).

Cool Maybe I misinterpreted the pages I read where if you have gnome 3 desktop, you need systemd-* stuff in there and that it was inevitable

@Francois
Uselessd is not any good? I read that it is also an alternative. What about it? @fanthom, if one runs gnome3, then systemd stuff(or blank libs) are needed for it to run?
I read that OpenBSD works very hard to get gnome3 working on their desktop without systemd because it is for linux only. @brokenman, does mate require systemd stuff?
It is great to be back and hearing your opinions.

[francois]

@ tonio:
By the way, it is really nice to have you on the forum. Come by more often.

[sean]

How helpful or interesting would it be to have an "unbinding" poll rating user's need for boot speed?

Something such as:

please rate your boot speed priority from 10 to 1, (1 being "highest or first" priority)


or, 1 to 10, or whatever the best way to do it would be.

Sean

[phhpro]

...

[francois]

Evolution: good or bad?

The decision to adopt systemd was a majority decision on arch linux around 2012. However, it seems that there was some resistance:
https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/a ... 23386.html

And the debate censored in house did contiue outside the archlinux forum.

[brokenman]

And yet the cries went unheard. Arch is systemd based now. I think phppro is right. We can resist the future, but it will still come. Too bad it is in the form of systemd. I have had time to play with it now and in some ways I like it, in others I don't. It is way more than just an init system which I don't think is a particularly good idea. IMHO an init system should get the system up and running, and do it well. Other init systems are linear and you have great control over this. To make an analogy, imagine processes are people waiting to get into a club. The traditional init system checks each persons ticket and shoes, allows them through and makes sure this is done in an orderly fashion. Systemd seems to collect all the tickets together, throw everybody towards the door and have them ask each other who has priority to go in first. Somehow they all get through the door (and damn fast I might add).

I needed to run a simple script during boot that would unlink a link BEFORE the dhcpcd.service was run. Man what a battle.

Before=network.target dhcpcd.service
After=sysinit.target

After learning all the befores, afters, requires, wants, (there are MANY more) I still couldn't the fucking thing to work as I wanted. Maybe I am too simple for this.
It is without a doubt way more powerful than most init systems, but the learning curve will drive you nuts. On top of that add binary log files (wtf?) and really long names to type to get info. I understand now why the resistance is strong. But in the end, as they say, resistance is futile.

[Bogomips]

It is way more than just an init system which I don't think is a particularly good idea.

All I know is, coming across Arch packages with systemd dependencies. So made stand-alone module for them, and they seem to check out ok.

[phhpro]

...

[francois]

And what about biodiversity or antimonopoly or systemdiversity. It is good to have Linux an open system, when the only options are windows and Mac OS xx, which are closed systems.

[Ed_P]

when the only options are windows and Mac OS xx, which are closed systems.

Android doesn't seem to have had any problem making a name for itself. Look at the booming sales of Android devices.

[Bogomips]

@bogomips - I guess one could always bend the fence to make the cattle pass. I wouldn't try to squeeze an 18-wheeler into an disabled parking lot though.

After 2 days I've finally figured it out, cultural difference and all that. It must be into a 'disabled parking space'. Its's the only thing that makes sense. (Couldn't find the light bulb )