10 ms·

Now I know there's tons of drama around systemd, and I'm really not trying to re-start any of those flamewars. (please!) But I never followed the topic that c

Now I know there's tons of drama around systemd, and I'm really not trying to re-start any of those flamewars. (please!) But I never followed the topic that closely, so I'm honestly curious. Looking back on this, he makes a pretty compelling case for his ideas. Were the objections to systemd mainly disagreements with the concepts (parallelizing socket services, etc)? Or was it more the way the ideas were implemented in systemd that traditional sysadmins didn't like? (binary "registry-like" config files, etc) I only ask because, if most objections were about the implementation, then it should be possible to create a system that achieves the benefits he's extolling here, while keeping a lot of the "Unixy feel" that his detractors prefer. If it's a more fundamental disagreement, then it's harder to see a path that could make both sides happy.

ori_b 10y ago
The objections I tend to hear aren't so much about the parts of systemd listed in here, but about the way it seems to have grown to take over the rest of the system. For example, it has its own syslog replacement, login manager, dbus implementation, network connection manager, dhcp server, udev implementation, boot manager, etc. There's talk of making it a dependency of Gnome, which would make Gnome and its components impossible to run on systems without systemd.
- fpoling 10y ago
  Add to that list own DNS resolver and a time manager.
- sseagull 10y ago
  > which would make Gnome and its components impossible to run on systems without systemd. This is my main complaint. Most programmers know that coupling separate components is a bad idea[0]. After a while, the two components merge; they will begin to interface to lower and lower levels of each other, with the result being a giant mass of interdependent spaghetti code. Your choice of desktop manager should not, in any way, dictate which init system you use. And with system taking udev and everything else with it, it may be almost impossible to separate out systemd ever again. [0] I was going to link to the Stevens paper, but even wikipedia has an article about the problems of coupling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(computer_programming) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(computer_programming...
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Nifty. Seems to me that while unix (and thus Linux) have traditionally leaned towards data or stamp coupling, while systemd is over at common coupling.
- otterley 10y ago
  Those are all optional components, though. Why complain of their mere existence? If people want to use them, that's their business.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    They are optional from the pov of pid1 yes, but may well not be from the pov of something user facing. And thus you have systemd taking over pid1 because something user facing depends on something that depends on systemd-pid1. Consider this, upower now is pretty much a wrapper of logind.
vaebiWoo 10y ago
> binary "registry-like" config files Just FYI, systemd doesn't use and has never used binary config files. No idea where that myth came from.
- cvwright 10y ago
  Oh, well that's good! Maybe people are talking about his idea for replacing init (shell) scripts with C programs?
  - yarrel 10y ago
    It uses binary logs, which is a common complaint. Its configuration is actually less bad than modern Gnome etc., but is still a great increase in complexity. A better init system was needed. A better init system is still needed. The trojan horse of systemd definitely wasn't needed. Hopefully it will spin off into its own OS at some point to compete with Ubuntu(sic)'s userland on top of Windows and leave GNU/Linux to develop something that is less of an annoyance.
    - abstractbeliefs 10y ago
      So, one of the other things I hear people have issues with is the bloat of systemd, about how many other systems and services it has consumed and brought in under it's umbrella. With that in mind, what would a better init system look like for you? systemd-lite, with lots of the questionable feature creep removed and really brought back to it's PID1 beginnings? Something back to sysvinit with it's configuration-as-code, but with modern languages and a general freshen up? Or something else entirely? It's previously been very hard to get meaningful discussion about this (on both sides of the divide!) because each side is so highly polarised.
      - simoncion 10y ago
        > With that in mind, what would a better init system look like for you? I'm not the OP, but OpenRC is nice. I'm currently suffering from a round tuit shortage, so I haven't waded through the Debian Jessie discussion to find out why it wasn't a contender for their default init/rc system.
marcosdumay 10y ago
The article is great. It's a long tradition for systemd developers: - They say "We are creating X!" - People say "Hey, X would be great!" - They deliver Y, that technically is X, but only technically. - People say "WTF! Y is very bad." - They argue "That's why we did X, not Y." I'm sure systemd developers believe it is the best way to do what is described on the article. But nobody asked for a completely tangled Linux startup.
chris_wot 10y ago
It's the log files that I think got to them. Also, Lennart got a lot of flack for PulseAudio, which I think is a great pity because I really like it. Feel free to penalize me for this, if it makes you feel good go at it :-)

ori_b 10y ago

The objections I tend to hear aren't so much about the parts of systemd listed in here, but about the way it seems to have grown to take over the rest of the system. For example, it has its own syslog replacement, login manager, dbus implementation, network connection manager, dhcp server, udev implementation, boot manager, etc. There's talk of making it a dependency of Gnome, which would make Gnome and its components impossible to run on systems without systemd.

fpoling 10y ago
Add to that list own DNS resolver and a time manager.
sseagull 10y ago
> which would make Gnome and its components impossible to run on systems without systemd. This is my main complaint. Most programmers know that coupling separate components is a bad idea[0]. After a while, the two components merge; they will begin to interface to lower and lower levels of each other, with the result being a giant mass of interdependent spaghetti code. Your choice of desktop manager should not, in any way, dictate which init system you use. And with system taking udev and everything else with it, it may be almost impossible to separate out systemd ever again. [0] I was going to link to the Stevens paper, but even wikipedia has an article about the problems of coupling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(computer_programming) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(computer_programming...
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Nifty. Seems to me that while unix (and thus Linux) have traditionally leaned towards data or stamp coupling, while systemd is over at common coupling.
otterley 10y ago
Those are all optional components, though. Why complain of their mere existence? If people want to use them, that's their business.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  They are optional from the pov of pid1 yes, but may well not be from the pov of something user facing. And thus you have systemd taking over pid1 because something user facing depends on something that depends on systemd-pid1. Consider this, upower now is pretty much a wrapper of logind.

vaebiWoo 10y ago

> binary "registry-like" config files Just FYI, systemd doesn't use and has never used binary config files. No idea where that myth came from.

cvwright 10y ago
Oh, well that's good! Maybe people are talking about his idea for replacing init (shell) scripts with C programs?
- yarrel 10y ago
  It uses binary logs, which is a common complaint. Its configuration is actually less bad than modern Gnome etc., but is still a great increase in complexity. A better init system was needed. A better init system is still needed. The trojan horse of systemd definitely wasn't needed. Hopefully it will spin off into its own OS at some point to compete with Ubuntu(sic)'s userland on top of Windows and leave GNU/Linux to develop something that is less of an annoyance.
  - abstractbeliefs 10y ago
    So, one of the other things I hear people have issues with is the bloat of systemd, about how many other systems and services it has consumed and brought in under it's umbrella. With that in mind, what would a better init system look like for you? systemd-lite, with lots of the questionable feature creep removed and really brought back to it's PID1 beginnings? Something back to sysvinit with it's configuration-as-code, but with modern languages and a general freshen up? Or something else entirely? It's previously been very hard to get meaningful discussion about this (on both sides of the divide!) because each side is so highly polarised.
    - simoncion 10y ago
      > With that in mind, what would a better init system look like for you? I'm not the OP, but OpenRC is nice. I'm currently suffering from a round tuit shortage, so I haven't waded through the Debian Jessie discussion to find out why it wasn't a contender for their default init/rc system.

marcosdumay 10y ago

The article is great. It's a long tradition for systemd developers: - They say "We are creating X!" - People say "Hey, X would be great!" - They deliver Y, that technically is X, but only technically. - People say "WTF! Y is very bad." - They argue "That's why we did X, not Y." I'm sure systemd developers believe it is the best way to do what is described on the article. But nobody asked for a completely tangled Linux startup.

chris_wot 10y ago

It's the log files that I think got to them. Also, Lennart got a lot of flack for PulseAudio, which I think is a great pity because I really like it. Feel free to penalize me for this, if it makes you feel good go at it :-)