6 ms·

Yes. I've burned hours on systemd related problems that just didn't exist before. From DBus message delivery failures, debugging things that haven't broken for

by setq 9y ago

Yes. I've burned hours on systemd related problems that just didn't exist before. From DBus message delivery failures, debugging things that haven't broken for 20 years (which has incidentally got MUCH harder) to the whole shit crock that is NTP and locale management. That and the whole desktop buggery that has been going on for the best part of 8 years now has really put me off. To be honest you haven't really experienced systemd's fuckery until you have a hosed box. It's like negotiating a boot with a pigeon. Any other platform is ZERO hassle and that includes windows, OSX, freebsd, openbsd etc. And you can't criticise it anywhere (watch the downvotes). The problem is it lacks the mysterious as in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance class "quality". Merely glitter around a turd. However we're stuck with it so it's suck it up or move on. On the subject of moving on, you could run FreeBSD to run your servers. Much lower resource overheads, native ZFS, simple service management, some documentation worth more than toilet paper and the best thing of all, more sleep at night. Now there are binary updates and packages it's pretty easy. No more make world of any of that stuff.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago
> However we're stuck with it so it's suck it up or move on. This here is the hubris and arrogance of the entire thing. I take heart that in the linux community, there is enough technical skill to come up with a viable, more in spirit of linux alternative. And I believe that I shall see the day where it is implemented. Lenny P and the gang should be less arrogant, and better at improving their product with this in mind. No one needs red hats "buy in" for this.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Thing is that none of them have the backing of Red Hat's finances. Thus they can'ẗ keep up with the churn that systemd and other RH backed projects produce.
  - setq 9y ago
    This is why we need standards and APIs which are immutable. It doesn't matter what the implementation is then. The whole of systemd is a comedic fuck you to POSIX and the mentality of a system which is standardised.
    - rleigh 9y ago
      This is exactly why I've moved (and am in the continuing process of moving) more and more stuff over to BSD. Standards matter. Compliance with POSIX and other common standards and conventions are what made the success of Linux possible, and I find it disturbing that the new generation of RedHat developers are keen to tell us that it's old hat and is no longer important. But they are forgetting much of the history and the reasons for it. Linux didn't get to where it is by throwing its weight around and dictating to others (at least, not much). Its success came from interoperability with everything, making it indispensable glue, and its adherence to standards was an integral part of that. As mainstream Linux becomes more insular and controlled by a single vendor, it becomes correspondingly less useful and less desirable. I don't want to be locked in to a RedHat world any more than I wanted to be tied to Solaris or HP-UX. I get occasional PRs for my software demanding that I add systemd-specific functionality, with the assumption that it's the only thing that matters, and people get annoyed when I refuse to compromise the portability of my already-standards-compliant software with Linux- and systemd-specific hacks.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        "POSIX Has Become Outdated", ;login: issue: Fall 2016, Vol. 41, No. 3 http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~vatlidak/resources/POSIXmagazine.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~vatlidak/resources/POSIXmagazine... https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/fall2016/atlidakis https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/fall2016/atlidakis
        setq 9y ago
        One doesn't win a game of chess by moving all the pieces at the same time.
  - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
    I hate to point out that LOTS of Linux Distros did not and do not have Red Hats finances. People have been contributing to it for nearly 20 years just fine. Not sure how you could even think that people need Red Hats finances to create something in linux that actually functions, and is worthwhile.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      True for initial implementation of individual components. But RH employ developers that can sit full time and churn the interfaces (not necessarily nefariously) between the components such that only their components stay in sync.
      - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
        What systemD has turned in to, is FAR out of scope, for what RH probably gave encouragement for. This will boomerang back some day.
icebraining 9y ago
And you can't criticise it anywhere (watch the downvotes). Nonsense. HN has plenty of comments criticizing systemd, some of them in this very thread. They just have to be substantial, not merely empty rants or technically wrong claims.
- setq 9y ago
  I apologise. This is the first time I've criticised systemd on HN. I had a massive rant on another site a couple of years ago when CentOS 7 dropped about the catalogue of failures I had been through with systemd, completely backed up with evidence and bug reports and it was hammered by downvotes instantly.
  - alrs 9y ago
    It's Redhat employees downvoting from their desks. You can get systemd criticism in on HN on major US holidays when they're off with their families.
    - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
      I noticed that. Amazing.
      - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
        I'm replying to myself because the original comment I was replying to was flagged, as it mentioned RH employees down votings. Its the little things isnt it.
    - setq 9y ago
      This is interesting and lines up with the time zone offset on my last rant a couple of years back. Peak in upvotes UK afternoon followed by downvote pummelling at around 4pm UK time. Without wishing to don the tinfoil hat too much, actively squashing critical discussion on your product is a dick move if it's true. This has got so bad on some parts of reddit they removed the voting buttons.
smhenderson 9y ago
Any other platform is ZERO hassle and that includes windows, OSX, freebsd, openbsd etc. I'd add Slackware to that list, at least for now. I've switched some servers to OpenBSD and a few others to Slackware, plus I've switched to Slackware for a laptop I use. I'm cautiously optimistic that Patrick will keep systemd out of Slackware for the foreseeable future. It is after all one of the most BSD like Linux distros available.
- setq 9y ago
  Interesting. I haven't used slackware for many years, so far back in fact that it had to come on CDs because I had a dial up. Will take a look in that direction this evening.
  - smhenderson 9y ago
    I hadn't used it since the mid-nineties but it was the first distro I ever used and, really, my first exposure to any Unix like system. My first copy came on a CD in a book I bought at a software trade show. I joined a company that used Debian for everything so I ended up switching to it for many years. When systemd came along I decided to look around again; thus my foray into OpenBSD and my return to Slackware. If you do give it a look you may be surprised at how little some things have changed. Packages are kept pretty current but the installer and the basic tools are surprisingly similar to the way they were when it was first released in the early nineties.
    - setq 9y ago
      Excellent. Downloading now :) I ran NetBSD and OpenBSD on old sun kit in the late 1990s and early 2000's followed by Debian and then CentOS. FreeBSD got a look in persistently on the side. I'd rather like a step back to the sensibility of times past when you chucked something out and it just did its job until something blew up :)
      - smhenderson 9y ago
        I'd rather like a step back to the sensibility of times past when you chucked something out and it just did its job until something blew up Then I think you'll love Slackware!

by setq 9y ago

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

> However we're stuck with it so it's suck it up or move on. This here is the hubris and arrogance of the entire thing. I take heart that in the linux community, there is enough technical skill to come up with a viable, more in spirit of linux alternative. And I believe that I shall see the day where it is implemented. Lenny P and the gang should be less arrogant, and better at improving their product with this in mind. No one needs red hats "buy in" for this.

digi_owl 9y ago
Thing is that none of them have the backing of Red Hat's finances. Thus they can'ẗ keep up with the churn that systemd and other RH backed projects produce.
- setq 9y ago
  This is why we need standards and APIs which are immutable. It doesn't matter what the implementation is then. The whole of systemd is a comedic fuck you to POSIX and the mentality of a system which is standardised.
  - rleigh 9y ago
    This is exactly why I've moved (and am in the continuing process of moving) more and more stuff over to BSD. Standards matter. Compliance with POSIX and other common standards and conventions are what made the success of Linux possible, and I find it disturbing that the new generation of RedHat developers are keen to tell us that it's old hat and is no longer important. But they are forgetting much of the history and the reasons for it. Linux didn't get to where it is by throwing its weight around and dictating to others (at least, not much). Its success came from interoperability with everything, making it indispensable glue, and its adherence to standards was an integral part of that. As mainstream Linux becomes more insular and controlled by a single vendor, it becomes correspondingly less useful and less desirable. I don't want to be locked in to a RedHat world any more than I wanted to be tied to Solaris or HP-UX. I get occasional PRs for my software demanding that I add systemd-specific functionality, with the assumption that it's the only thing that matters, and people get annoyed when I refuse to compromise the portability of my already-standards-compliant software with Linux- and systemd-specific hacks.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      "POSIX Has Become Outdated", ;login: issue: Fall 2016, Vol. 41, No. 3 http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~vatlidak/resources/POSIXmagazine.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~vatlidak/resources/POSIXmagazine... https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/fall2016/atlidakis https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/fall2016/atlidakis
      - setq 9y ago
        One doesn't win a game of chess by moving all the pieces at the same time.
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  I hate to point out that LOTS of Linux Distros did not and do not have Red Hats finances. People have been contributing to it for nearly 20 years just fine. Not sure how you could even think that people need Red Hats finances to create something in linux that actually functions, and is worthwhile.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    True for initial implementation of individual components. But RH employ developers that can sit full time and churn the interfaces (not necessarily nefariously) between the components such that only their components stay in sync.
    - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
      What systemD has turned in to, is FAR out of scope, for what RH probably gave encouragement for. This will boomerang back some day.

icebraining 9y ago

And you can't criticise it anywhere (watch the downvotes). Nonsense. HN has plenty of comments criticizing systemd, some of them in this very thread. They just have to be substantial, not merely empty rants or technically wrong claims.

setq 9y ago
I apologise. This is the first time I've criticised systemd on HN. I had a massive rant on another site a couple of years ago when CentOS 7 dropped about the catalogue of failures I had been through with systemd, completely backed up with evidence and bug reports and it was hammered by downvotes instantly.
- alrs 9y ago
  It's Redhat employees downvoting from their desks. You can get systemd criticism in on HN on major US holidays when they're off with their families.
  - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
    I noticed that. Amazing.
    - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
      I'm replying to myself because the original comment I was replying to was flagged, as it mentioned RH employees down votings. Its the little things isnt it.
  - setq 9y ago
    This is interesting and lines up with the time zone offset on my last rant a couple of years back. Peak in upvotes UK afternoon followed by downvote pummelling at around 4pm UK time. Without wishing to don the tinfoil hat too much, actively squashing critical discussion on your product is a dick move if it's true. This has got so bad on some parts of reddit they removed the voting buttons.

smhenderson 9y ago

Any other platform is ZERO hassle and that includes windows, OSX, freebsd, openbsd etc. I'd add Slackware to that list, at least for now. I've switched some servers to OpenBSD and a few others to Slackware, plus I've switched to Slackware for a laptop I use. I'm cautiously optimistic that Patrick will keep systemd out of Slackware for the foreseeable future. It is after all one of the most BSD like Linux distros available.

setq 9y ago
Interesting. I haven't used slackware for many years, so far back in fact that it had to come on CDs because I had a dial up. Will take a look in that direction this evening.
- smhenderson 9y ago
  I hadn't used it since the mid-nineties but it was the first distro I ever used and, really, my first exposure to any Unix like system. My first copy came on a CD in a book I bought at a software trade show. I joined a company that used Debian for everything so I ended up switching to it for many years. When systemd came along I decided to look around again; thus my foray into OpenBSD and my return to Slackware. If you do give it a look you may be surprised at how little some things have changed. Packages are kept pretty current but the installer and the basic tools are surprisingly similar to the way they were when it was first released in the early nineties.
  - setq 9y ago
    Excellent. Downloading now :) I ran NetBSD and OpenBSD on old sun kit in the late 1990s and early 2000's followed by Debian and then CentOS. FreeBSD got a look in persistently on the side. I'd rather like a step back to the sensibility of times past when you chucked something out and it just did its job until something blew up :)
    - smhenderson 9y ago
      I'd rather like a step back to the sensibility of times past when you chucked something out and it just did its job until something blew up Then I think you'll love Slackware!