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It's interesting to me that debian has written systemd-shim, hadn't heard about it before. I remember that for a while, the primary criticism I heard of system

It's interesting to me that debian has written systemd-shim, hadn't heard about it before. I remember that for a while, the primary criticism I heard of systemd was that it would make software linux-only because of systemd dependencies (gnome was the primary example given) and that it was impossible to write a compatibility wrapper. I guess the debian guys busted that myth.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
I guess the debian guys busted that myth. Nope, they haven't. systemd-shim is a fundamentally unsustainable idea: http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/debian-systemd-packaging-hoo-hah.html#systemd-shim http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/de...
- throwaway7767 11y ago
  Thanks for that link, it provides an interesting counterpoint. I'm not sure I agree that it's an unsustainable idea to keep a wrapper updated. If people really are interested in it, surely they will keep it updated. Lots of open source projects bitrot, and the general reason is lack of interest in keeping them working. Given the number of times I've seen the non-portability complaint, it's especially surprising that noone but Steve Langesek (according to your link) has seen fit to contribute code. I do agree though that it would be better if systemd standardised those interfaces that people want to use, such as the logind interface.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    The systemd interface portability and stability chart lists logind as not being independently reimplementable, and I don't see that changing soon. Steve Langasek was an Upstart project leader, and systemd-shim was never intended to be more than a temporary workaround, from what I know. Fact is, targeting the internal D-Bus interfaces is an exercise in perpetually playing catch-up.
    - eeperson 11y ago
      I think the 'Reimplementable Independently' just means that it is straightforward to reimplement on top of systemd (although that isn't made very clear). Since the external login DBus interface is standardized, I can't imagine why it would be difficult to reimplement logind on top of another init system. edit-grammar
  - eeperson 11y ago
    Systemd does standardize many interfaces[1] (including logind). [1] - http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/InterfacePortabilityAndStabilityChart/ http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/InterfacePo...
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Reimplementable Independently: No Ian Sutton, who embarked on a project to emulate some of the systemd D-Bus daemons, also attests to the "standardization" being largely a red herring: http://darknedgy.net/files/systembsd.pdf http://darknedgy.net/files/systembsd.pdf
      - eeperson 11y ago
        I don't think 'Reimplementable Independently' means what you think it means. See my reply to your other post for more details[1]. I'm not sure I get how those slides indicate that the systemd interfaces are not standardized (with the possible exception of timedated, although the slides were kind of vague). Most of the problems seemed to be due to the fact that OpenBSD doesn't support PAM. Was there a particular section you were referring to? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10234379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10234379
pakled_engineer 11y ago
BSD devs wrote a shim too for Gnome called systemd-utl (now system-bsd) at GSoC https://uglyman.kremlin.cc/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=systembsd.git;a=summary https://uglyman.kremlin.cc/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=systembsd.git... More info http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140915064856 http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140915064856 it provides hostnamed, localed, timedated, and logind to packages that have this as a hard dependency.
- mlichvar 11y ago
  Writing new implementations of the systemd interfaces for systems which don't use systemd seems reasonable, but I think it's interesting there was a need to reimplement the timedated interface on a system that does use systemd and supports no other init. I wrote a replacement for the systemd-timedated service for Fedora. The reason was simple, it could no longer control other NTP clients than systemd-timesyncd (which technically is just an SNTP client). With timedatex, users can now enable and disable with the "NTP sync" checkbox in GNOME any NTP client as was originally supported by systemd-timedated. https://github.com/mlichvar/timedatex https://github.com/mlichvar/timedatex
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Last time i read anything about that, they had gotten bogged down dealing with logind.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

I guess the debian guys busted that myth. Nope, they haven't. systemd-shim is a fundamentally unsustainable idea: http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/debian-systemd-packaging-hoo-hah.html#systemd-shim http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/de...

throwaway7767 11y ago
Thanks for that link, it provides an interesting counterpoint. I'm not sure I agree that it's an unsustainable idea to keep a wrapper updated. If people really are interested in it, surely they will keep it updated. Lots of open source projects bitrot, and the general reason is lack of interest in keeping them working. Given the number of times I've seen the non-portability complaint, it's especially surprising that noone but Steve Langesek (according to your link) has seen fit to contribute code. I do agree though that it would be better if systemd standardised those interfaces that people want to use, such as the logind interface.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  The systemd interface portability and stability chart lists logind as not being independently reimplementable, and I don't see that changing soon. Steve Langasek was an Upstart project leader, and systemd-shim was never intended to be more than a temporary workaround, from what I know. Fact is, targeting the internal D-Bus interfaces is an exercise in perpetually playing catch-up.
  - eeperson 11y ago
    I think the 'Reimplementable Independently' just means that it is straightforward to reimplement on top of systemd (although that isn't made very clear). Since the external login DBus interface is standardized, I can't imagine why it would be difficult to reimplement logind on top of another init system. edit-grammar
- eeperson 11y ago
  Systemd does standardize many interfaces[1] (including logind). [1] - http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/InterfacePortabilityAndStabilityChart/ http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/InterfacePo...
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Reimplementable Independently: No Ian Sutton, who embarked on a project to emulate some of the systemd D-Bus daemons, also attests to the "standardization" being largely a red herring: http://darknedgy.net/files/systembsd.pdf http://darknedgy.net/files/systembsd.pdf
    - eeperson 11y ago
      I don't think 'Reimplementable Independently' means what you think it means. See my reply to your other post for more details[1]. I'm not sure I get how those slides indicate that the systemd interfaces are not standardized (with the possible exception of timedated, although the slides were kind of vague). Most of the problems seemed to be due to the fact that OpenBSD doesn't support PAM. Was there a particular section you were referring to? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10234379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10234379

pakled_engineer 11y ago

BSD devs wrote a shim too for Gnome called systemd-utl (now system-bsd) at GSoC https://uglyman.kremlin.cc/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=systembsd.git;a=summary https://uglyman.kremlin.cc/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=systembsd.git... More info http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140915064856 http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140915064856 it provides hostnamed, localed, timedated, and logind to packages that have this as a hard dependency.

mlichvar 11y ago
Writing new implementations of the systemd interfaces for systems which don't use systemd seems reasonable, but I think it's interesting there was a need to reimplement the timedated interface on a system that does use systemd and supports no other init. I wrote a replacement for the systemd-timedated service for Fedora. The reason was simple, it could no longer control other NTP clients than systemd-timesyncd (which technically is just an SNTP client). With timedatex, users can now enable and disable with the "NTP sync" checkbox in GNOME any NTP client as was originally supported by systemd-timedated. https://github.com/mlichvar/timedatex https://github.com/mlichvar/timedatex
digi_owl 11y ago
Last time i read anything about that, they had gotten bogged down dealing with logind.