5 ms·

I've routinely seen a desire to not use systemd described as "hate". Why is that? When somebody wants to use zsh instead of bash, it's not described as "bash h

by epoch1970 10y ago

I've routinely seen a desire to not use systemd described as "hate". Why is that? When somebody wants to use zsh instead of bash, it's not described as "bash hate". Or when somebody wants to use Clang/LLVM instead of GCC, it's not described as "GCC hate". Or when somebody wants to use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL, it's not described as "MySQL hate". Yet when somebody wants to use some other init system instead of systemd, it is described as "systemd hate". Why are so many systemd supporters fixated on this vague concept of "hate"?

loudmax 10y ago
Using zsh instead of bash is a choice. The same more or less goes for a compiler or database. At least, we aren't seeing a situation where large numbers of major beloved projects are forcing their users to switch compiler or database. Nearly every major Linux distribution is now moving to systemd. Regardless of its merits, this is a significant change, and a lot of us sysadmins feel like we're being forced into it. Whether you're running RedHat/Centos, Ubuntu/Debian, or Arch, systemd is coming whether you like it or not. Even if systemd's merits were undisputed, one of the things we like about Linux is choice. As it is, the merits of systemd are very much in dispute, and the choosing not to run it pretty much means moving away from these major Linux distributions entirely. Hence lots of new interest in FreeBSD. FWIW, systemd has been pretty solid in my experience. Still, I'm glad the FreeBSD exists and is thriving without it.
eggnet 10y ago
Because you don't change operating systems over mild discomfort.
phippsbrad 10y ago
To understand, you only need to read the recent posts about how systemd is effecting how commonly used userland applications work like: screen, tmux, nohup. The systemd supporters are soon going to take away the ability to run pretty much all background processes (including using "&" in a shell) by killing those processes when your X session logs out. This will fundamentally changes the way you administer and maintain a linux computer. When told that this change is a bad idea, the systemd supporters said they knew better than you, and they are doing this to make the desktop UI better. This is one small example why they invoke "hate". They make a decisions like that every day that dramatically effect the entire linux platform. If I can't run "nohup" or "screen" or "sh &" to do my job anymore, then that forces me to use some other OS/distro that does not have systemd installed as the default.
- api 10y ago
  "The systemd supporters are soon going to take away the ability to run pretty much all background processes (including using "&" in a shell) by killing those processes when your X session logs out." WUT? (goes and downloads FreeBSD...) I've been a Linux user since 1993 and SystemV init was something definitely in need of replacement. But this was not even close to the most pressing problem in the Linux ecosystem. The most pressing problems were and are things like the clunkiness of package management, the inadequacy of the root/userland permission model, and general user experience and UI issues. Systemd is not addressing any of that and may actually be making some of those problems worse. After using systemd a bit, I've become a hater too. It's a clean slate reboot of init and yet it's somehow managed to be more arcane and confusing than sysV-init. That's an accomplishment, but not an admirable one. It tries to do way too many things at once in one vertically integrated system, has an arcane confusing non-intuitive syntax and configuration scheme, and just generally feels "enterprise" in the "over-engineered mess" pejorative sense of the term. Whenever I use it I find myself thinking "why would you do it like that?" and "who wanted that?" over and over again. It feels like the sort of system that's deliberately engineered for obtuseness so high priced consultants can be paid to operate it. Maybe it is. Unfortunately FreeBSD's init system seems at first glance to be even more primitive than Linux's old sysV-init. Checking out the docs it looks like a trip back to the 1970s. Is service management with a simple graph of dependencies really that hard? Come on. Good programmers solve these kinds of problems all the time on a much larger scale. We've got OSS hackers building distributed systems, fault tolerant databases, cryptocurrency, and 'permanent decentralized web' protocols and we can't solve init?
  - Freaky 10y ago
    > Unfortunately FreeBSD's init system seems at first glance to be even more primitive than Linux's old sysV-init. You're better off looking at the rc system[1]. It leaves a lot to be desired, but it's much better than the sysV approach. There are ongoing efforts to modernise things a bit. The 4Q 2015 report[2] mentions a few. I like the look of nosh, personally. 1: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/rc-scripting/index.html https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/rc-scripting/index.h... 2: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2016-February/001706.html https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2016-Fe...
coredog64 10y ago
The authors of GCC and bash aren't receiving the volume of death threats that Poettering does. Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of systemd, but serious death threats aren't the fix.
- lmm 10y ago
  No-one was forced to migrate to GCC or bash, and they render systems unbootable a lot less often than Pottering does.
  - rbanffy 10y ago
    No one is forced to anything. If you don't like systemd you are free to use whatever you are able to maintain yourself or pay someone else to do so.
    - teacup50 10y ago
      systemd is quintessential "embrace, extend, and extinguish". If you don't like the word "force", we can use "coerce" instead.
      - rbanffy 10y ago
        Here, so nobody can force you to use systemd: http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
        dijit 10y ago
        Reasonably we can conclude that we are in fact forced to use systemd. if you want to use a modern production ready distro for servers you cannot look further than: ubuntu, debian, RHEL/CentOS, and probably SuSE (although declining). If you're an american company you're very likely using CentOS already and if you're a European company you're very likely using debian already, and there is little wiggle room there. So, yes, my standards body ensures that systemd is inflicted on my systems and it's a lot more hassle to move away from debian right now than to embrace systemd for all it's warts.

loudmax 10y ago

Using zsh instead of bash is a choice. The same more or less goes for a compiler or database. At least, we aren't seeing a situation where large numbers of major beloved projects are forcing their users to switch compiler or database. Nearly every major Linux distribution is now moving to systemd. Regardless of its merits, this is a significant change, and a lot of us sysadmins feel like we're being forced into it. Whether you're running RedHat/Centos, Ubuntu/Debian, or Arch, systemd is coming whether you like it or not. Even if systemd's merits were undisputed, one of the things we like about Linux is choice. As it is, the merits of systemd are very much in dispute, and the choosing not to run it pretty much means moving away from these major Linux distributions entirely. Hence lots of new interest in FreeBSD. FWIW, systemd has been pretty solid in my experience. Still, I'm glad the FreeBSD exists and is thriving without it.

eggnet 10y ago

Because you don't change operating systems over mild discomfort.

phippsbrad 10y ago

To understand, you only need to read the recent posts about how systemd is effecting how commonly used userland applications work like: screen, tmux, nohup. The systemd supporters are soon going to take away the ability to run pretty much all background processes (including using "&" in a shell) by killing those processes when your X session logs out. This will fundamentally changes the way you administer and maintain a linux computer. When told that this change is a bad idea, the systemd supporters said they knew better than you, and they are doing this to make the desktop UI better. This is one small example why they invoke "hate". They make a decisions like that every day that dramatically effect the entire linux platform. If I can't run "nohup" or "screen" or "sh &" to do my job anymore, then that forces me to use some other OS/distro that does not have systemd installed as the default.

api 10y ago
"The systemd supporters are soon going to take away the ability to run pretty much all background processes (including using "&" in a shell) by killing those processes when your X session logs out." WUT? (goes and downloads FreeBSD...) I've been a Linux user since 1993 and SystemV init was something definitely in need of replacement. But this was not even close to the most pressing problem in the Linux ecosystem. The most pressing problems were and are things like the clunkiness of package management, the inadequacy of the root/userland permission model, and general user experience and UI issues. Systemd is not addressing any of that and may actually be making some of those problems worse. After using systemd a bit, I've become a hater too. It's a clean slate reboot of init and yet it's somehow managed to be more arcane and confusing than sysV-init. That's an accomplishment, but not an admirable one. It tries to do way too many things at once in one vertically integrated system, has an arcane confusing non-intuitive syntax and configuration scheme, and just generally feels "enterprise" in the "over-engineered mess" pejorative sense of the term. Whenever I use it I find myself thinking "why would you do it like that?" and "who wanted that?" over and over again. It feels like the sort of system that's deliberately engineered for obtuseness so high priced consultants can be paid to operate it. Maybe it is. Unfortunately FreeBSD's init system seems at first glance to be even more primitive than Linux's old sysV-init. Checking out the docs it looks like a trip back to the 1970s. Is service management with a simple graph of dependencies really that hard? Come on. Good programmers solve these kinds of problems all the time on a much larger scale. We've got OSS hackers building distributed systems, fault tolerant databases, cryptocurrency, and 'permanent decentralized web' protocols and we can't solve init?
- Freaky 10y ago
  > Unfortunately FreeBSD's init system seems at first glance to be even more primitive than Linux's old sysV-init. You're better off looking at the rc system[1]. It leaves a lot to be desired, but it's much better than the sysV approach. There are ongoing efforts to modernise things a bit. The 4Q 2015 report[2] mentions a few. I like the look of nosh, personally. 1: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/rc-scripting/index.html https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/rc-scripting/index.h... 2: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2016-February/001706.html https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2016-Fe...

coredog64 10y ago

The authors of GCC and bash aren't receiving the volume of death threats that Poettering does. Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of systemd, but serious death threats aren't the fix.

lmm 10y ago
No-one was forced to migrate to GCC or bash, and they render systems unbootable a lot less often than Pottering does.
- rbanffy 10y ago
  No one is forced to anything. If you don't like systemd you are free to use whatever you are able to maintain yourself or pay someone else to do so.
  - teacup50 10y ago
    systemd is quintessential "embrace, extend, and extinguish". If you don't like the word "force", we can use "coerce" instead.
    - rbanffy 10y ago
      Here, so nobody can force you to use systemd: http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
      - dijit 10y ago
        Reasonably we can conclude that we are in fact forced to use systemd. if you want to use a modern production ready distro for servers you cannot look further than: ubuntu, debian, RHEL/CentOS, and probably SuSE (although declining). If you're an american company you're very likely using CentOS already and if you're a European company you're very likely using debian already, and there is little wiggle room there. So, yes, my standards body ensures that systemd is inflicted on my systems and it's a lot more hassle to move away from debian right now than to embrace systemd for all it's warts.