9 ms·

It seems obvious he is referring to systemd. I like systemd, but Linus hates it when people break userspace, and systemd has broken userspace a lot. Poettering

It seems obvious he is referring to systemd. I like systemd, but Linus hates it when people break userspace, and systemd has broken userspace a lot. Poettering seems to take the advice of "release early and often" to heart and pushes things into widespread usage long before they're quite fully baked. PulseAudio was awful for years, and then it was good and we all stopped complaining about it. systemd was kinda crap for months after it became widespread...a ton of breakage, including in ways that were occasionally dangerous. We're lucky, I guess, that systemd didn't take as long as PulseAudio to stop sucking all the time (systemd still sucks some of the time, but what it replaced sucked a lot, too). So, yeah, you can't break userspace if you want Linus on your team, and systemd has broken userspace now and then.

asveikau 9y ago
You seem to exist in a fictional universe where pulseaudio "got good" and doesn't suck. All these years later I have never seen that be the case. I think a much more likely explanation is that desktop Linux is less common since the rise of OS X in the "Unix-like developer machine" market so there are now fewer people noticing it sucks.
- pcr0 9y ago
  I was one of those developers with an OS X machine who decided to buy a Thinkpad and throw Ubuntu on it. pulseaudio worked out of the box for me and I definitely preferred it over the stunted OS X audio mixer that doesn't even let you define per-application audio.
  - isatty 9y ago
    The MacOS mixer is pretty much the epitome of "just works" even though I agree with you that it doesn't let you control levels per application. However I've been using the MacOS sound system (not just the mixer) for many years through many devices (mics, external dacs, HDMI transports, DP etc) and it has always worked without any problems.
    - pfranz 9y ago
      I don't have much personal experience, but I /often/ hear about OSX users very wary of updating MacOS because of issues with sound equipment. This goes back to Classic. It may have gone away in the past 3-5 years, but the stigma is still there.
- Rjevski 9y ago
  What were your problems exactly? In my case I used Linux full time from late 2012 to early 2014 and during that time I haven't had a single problem related to it, all while running bleeding edge Archlinux. The only issue was with bluetooth headphones but I'm pretty sure it was more with BlueZ being a pile of garbage than Pulseaudio being bad, given that BlueZ was giving me problems with all sorts of other (non sound) peripherals as well.
  - LukeShu 9y ago
    Are you actually using PulseAudio? Having run Arch (well, Parabola) since 2011, I haven't had any problems with PulseAudio... because I've never installed PulseAudio. Actually, I did have a problem with Wine and lib32-libpulse lagging slightly behind the video (where it's only a fraction of a second off, but enough that it doesn't feel like the words match the faces); and then I figured out how to get Wine to use ALSA, just like everything else.
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    I tried installing it a few months ago, and... could not get any sound. Similar experience several years ago. I'm sure I could Google and fix, but for me, it did not "just work". Don't get me wrong. For years, ALSA was a pain. But in the last 10 years, ALSA has always "just worked" for me. I think the only time I had to fiddle with ALSA in the last decade was to get the mic on a headset to work.
    - jhasse 9y ago
      For me, "Just Works" includes me not having to install it at all, not it being easy to set-up on LFS. Pulseaudio is pre-installed on Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.
      - boomboomsubban 9y ago
        ALSA is part of the kernel, it's likely been pre-installed in every Linux you have ever run. It's not a mark against it that you choose to install distros developed to use pulseaudio.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  I believe the universe I exist in is real, but how would I know for sure? Anyway, I haven't had to google about a pulseaudio problem in at least a few years. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop OS since 1995. I've hated Linux audio for most of that time, and I've broken it in every possible way. But, today, my Fedora system has sound that Just Works. I don't know how it Just Works (though I know it's pulseaudio), because I haven't had to learn...because it Just Works. It works for Steam games, it works for browser audio, it works for system notifications, it works for movies, it even works for audio and music software. It's pretty weird. Anyway, from what I can tell, the bugs, misfeatures, poorly thought out implementation, etc. all got worked out somewhere along the way. It took a long time. But, it did get fixed. Have you actually used it in the past couple of years?
  - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
    I did try to use it and discovered that it's impossible to configure mpd to run as a system service and be able to play sound while also allowing desktop applications to play sound. I forget all the details, but the way I figured out how to get sound to do what I wanted was to enable alsa dmix and to pipe everything possible through dmix, using pulseaudio only for the one or two essential apps that insist on it.
    - perakojotgenije 9y ago
      Funny, I just did that yesterday. I was reconfiguring my mpd server and I saw it was configured to use alsa (which, incidentally broke my sound occasionally). I set it up to use Pulseaudio and now I can listen to mpd server while listening to deezer.com that runs through browser while making a skype call on the same machine (not that I'd want to do it, anyway).
      - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        When you log out of your desktop session, does mpd continue playing? I have mpd setup to stream via icecast so I can listen to my music remotely and the issue I was having was that when I logged out of my desktop, the music would stop playing because the sound server was tied to my desktop session.
- shmerl 9y ago
  Never had issues with PulseAudio in the recent times. I use Linux for all my desktop needs, including gaming. Of course if you have specific audio needs that require more realtime processing, you can for example use Jack.
- gribbly 9y ago
  I haven't used PulseAudio until very recently when Firefox started requiring it for audio (chrome/chromium still support plain ALSA), that said I haven't come across any problem, what should I be looking out for ?
  - petepete 9y ago
    Nothing really, it's fine for nearly everything and just tends to get on with the job. The only bug that's affected me in the last couple of years was that the default volume on USB headsets was always set way too low. Pavucontrol helped sort it out https://freedesktop.org/software/pulseaudio/pavucontrol/ https://freedesktop.org/software/pulseaudio/pavucontrol/
    - Crespyl 9y ago
      The only problem I've had recently is that I can't seem to split up different ports on the same card (optical home theatre/soundbar for music, desktop stereo for everything else), but that's not something I was able to do with ALSA anyway. Something to do with opening the card in different profiles I think.
  - aexaey 9y ago
    Mostly minor things nowadays. I've seen so far: - a while ago pa got audio routing wrong on a new/obscure laptop, wrong audio routing as in - speakers would not turn off if you plug in headphones. That eventually got fixed with dnf upgrade and no effort on my part; - on ultrabook, pa sucks noticeable amount of battery by waking up 100 times a second (while no audio is being played). Something akin to what this poor chap is describing: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/6d7776/pulseaudio_battery_usage/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/6d7776/pulseaudio_b...
- petre 9y ago
  OS X in incresingly less Unix-like with every new version. They even changed its name back to MacOS.
  - eridius 9y ago
    You mean "macOS". But I don't see the relevance. Is it because the name no longer contains an "x" character? The X in OS X had no relation to unix, it was because it was the successor to MacOS 9 (and in fact the full name was originally Mac OS X).
    - petre 9y ago
      They even advertised it as Unix-like. https://www.apple.com/media/us/osx/2012/docs/OSX_for_UNIX_Users_TB_July2011.pdf https://www.apple.com/media/us/osx/2012/docs/OSX_for_UNIX_Us... We are using it for develoment but it's considerably more work to setup the develoment environment than installing a Linux distribution with everything we need available by default or a command away. Also in El Capitan the root user is disabled by default. http://www.infoworld.com/article/2988096/mac-os-x/sorry-unix-fans-os-x-el-capitan-kills-root.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/2988096/mac-os-x/sorry-unix...
      - lloeki 9y ago
        > installing a Linux distribution Linux != Unix. Darwin is much closer to BSD. > Also in El Capitan the root user is disabled by default. Lies. I never touched a thing and (on 10.13 ß): $ sudo su -l password: Galileo:~ root# ps -u root | wc -l 115 - You can't log into the UI as root (by default), and that is a good thing. - SEP prevents you (or any random script/software/installer you run) from meddling with system files and that is a good thing too, no different from sensible SELinux or AppArmor policies.
      - acdha 9y ago
        What all are you lumping into dev environment setup? For many years most projects have only needed two steps (CLI toolchain install, Homebrew) plus the project specific setup.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  User of desktop linux here (after 3 years of trying and failing with OS X). Also people at work are allowed to use desktop linux at work as long as we don't bother IT. (This with a serious company with even older more seriois roots.) I think desktop linux is still on the rise.
- aexaey 9y ago
  Very much this. The only big change with pa in last few years is - applications accepted and embraced it - to the point of dropping OSS & ALSA.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    I personally hope Linux application developers support PipeWire as it becomes available so that the usability issues around low-latency audio in Linux can be sorted out (i.e. it works out of the box): https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2017/06/20/fedora-workstation-26-and-beyond/ https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2017/06/20/fedora-workstation...
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    I really hate seeing how Firefox on Linux is spiraling the drain in this regard. First GTK3, then PA. There really is a changing of the guard in Linux userspace, and the change is for the worse.
- mijoharas 9y ago
  To be fair, pulseaudio has stopped causing me problems, which in my book is equivalent to "got good". Now if only the same could be said for bluez...
- jchw 9y ago
  Maybe you really do live in a different universe, because my audio sounds good and I legitimately can't remember the last time I had to worry about it. It's been years, and now for the first time on Desktop Linux I can connect a Bluetooth or USB audio device without wondering if I could actually coax my software into using it.
throwaway2048 9y ago
Its nothing to do with "release early and often", its gems like this that they refuse to fix over ridiculous hubris. https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6237 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6237 Its going to end up exactly like glibc under Drepper, where distributions are forced to have a mile of patches because obviously broken shit isn't patched because the maintainers are too arrogant to admit fault.
- grandinj 9y ago
  I dont see any signs of "refuse to fix" there. I see a calm and reasonable discussion and an acknowledgement that some things need improving. Perhaps they refused to fix it in exactly the way the reporter wanted, but that's a far cry from arrogant refusal.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    > yes, it's a feature that we don't permit invalid user names(...) So, yeah, I don't think there's anything to fix in systemd here. I understand this is annoying, but still: the username is clearly not valid. > systemd is not the one coming up with the restrictions on user names, and while some distributions are less restrictive, many do enforce the same restrictions as we do. In order to make systemd unit files portable between systems we'll hence enforce something that resembles more the universally accepted set, rather than accept the most liberal set possible. These are pretty clear "refuse to fix". Though I do agree that this is a poor example to illustrate the point.
  - isatty 9y ago
    What I saw was poettering spouting garbage about what he thinks is an invalid user name (when in reality, it is not and common tools like useradd don't complain about it). As the owner for a critical service like systemd (I don't use it, I prefer openRC on gentoo), he should know better.
    - Steeeve 9y ago
      grrr... your init system should not dictate what a valid username is. Your init system should use whatever users you've configured. I don't like your name. Therefore you get root. How on earth did this init system become so prevalent?
otterley 9y ago
How, exactly, has systemd "broken user space"? That's clear neither from the lkml thread, nor here. I'm not sure what this discussion even has to do with systemd; and I'm not even sure how you can "break user space" from a user space program, which init is. You might be able to modify your descendants' environment, but the rules under which that can happen are maintained and enforced by the kernel. It seems to me that if user space programs can do undesirable things, that's the fault of the kernel itself. To be sure, setting those boundaries and rules is one of the kernel's main jobs.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  There are a couple of inits in common usage on Linux; systemd is now the most popular and ships standard on the most popular distributions. I can't imagine Linus would be feeling grouchy toward a nearly defunct init (that had been in use mostly unchanged since the 90s), so we're left with systemd. Unless you've got a better idea about what he means? It is not a secret that kernel devs have a love-hate relationship with systemd, and have for years. That's why Linus said, "You all presumably know why." He was speaking with context that everyone on the LKML already knows. First result when I google it (but it's been a thing for a long time and on many fronts with many interesting bugs and arguments): http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY1MzA http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY1MzA I don't really subscribe to the "systemd is terrible and is the worst thing that ever happened to Linux" theory, and I'm not trying to be one of those folks that takes every opportunity to make a thread about how much systemd sucks. I like systemd. I mean it when I say that. But, in this case, it seems obvious it is about systemd. I have a hard time coming up with another plausible theory. Edit: Also, now that I'm thinking about Linus and Poettering butting heads...well, that's hilarious. A couple of brilliant assholes arguing is funny to me. I dunno how much it's actually happened (and how much happened through proxies), but still. Funny.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    But you said specifically "...and systemd has broken userspace a lot." What did you mean by this? It seems like a complete nonsense statement in the context of user space breakage of the form the kernel is responsible for. The main clash between the kernel maintainers and the systemd maintainers was over systemd reading the kernel argv in an error prone way to trigger debug information. Other than that the interactions seem completely minimal. Linus Torvalds uses systemd at work and at home.
Qantourisc 9y ago
I still hear a friend complain he often has to restart pulse because sound just stops working for him. And IIRC there is still no way to set the maximum amount of audio-buffer (for the end-user, not from the applications; some people prefer the occasional buffer under-run over the higher delay).
simias 9y ago
Well, pulseaudio is still pretty crap as far as I'm concerned. After an update last week Spotify won't work anymore and the sound in Firefox is glitchy. I haven't taken the time to investigate what caused that exactly, and I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Not that I was a huge fan of ALSA either. It always felt a bit over-engineered for my taste. I can understand needing something like that if you want to make professional audio equipment with the Linux kernel but for my desktop use case OSS has always worked just fine for me and it didn't randomly break after an update. As for systemd, it's bearable and it mostly does what it's supposed to do, but it still feels a bit unnecessary and its security track record is not stellar so far. I prefer the simplicity of the BSD init personally.
- nol13 9y ago
  Seems to have settled down now(?) but firefox audio was def glitchy for a few releases after for me requiring system restarts to get sound back.

asveikau 9y ago

You seem to exist in a fictional universe where pulseaudio "got good" and doesn't suck. All these years later I have never seen that be the case. I think a much more likely explanation is that desktop Linux is less common since the rise of OS X in the "Unix-like developer machine" market so there are now fewer people noticing it sucks.

pcr0 9y ago
I was one of those developers with an OS X machine who decided to buy a Thinkpad and throw Ubuntu on it. pulseaudio worked out of the box for me and I definitely preferred it over the stunted OS X audio mixer that doesn't even let you define per-application audio.
- isatty 9y ago
  The MacOS mixer is pretty much the epitome of "just works" even though I agree with you that it doesn't let you control levels per application. However I've been using the MacOS sound system (not just the mixer) for many years through many devices (mics, external dacs, HDMI transports, DP etc) and it has always worked without any problems.
  - pfranz 9y ago
    I don't have much personal experience, but I /often/ hear about OSX users very wary of updating MacOS because of issues with sound equipment. This goes back to Classic. It may have gone away in the past 3-5 years, but the stigma is still there.
Rjevski 9y ago
What were your problems exactly? In my case I used Linux full time from late 2012 to early 2014 and during that time I haven't had a single problem related to it, all while running bleeding edge Archlinux. The only issue was with bluetooth headphones but I'm pretty sure it was more with BlueZ being a pile of garbage than Pulseaudio being bad, given that BlueZ was giving me problems with all sorts of other (non sound) peripherals as well.
- LukeShu 9y ago
  Are you actually using PulseAudio? Having run Arch (well, Parabola) since 2011, I haven't had any problems with PulseAudio... because I've never installed PulseAudio. Actually, I did have a problem with Wine and lib32-libpulse lagging slightly behind the video (where it's only a fraction of a second off, but enough that it doesn't feel like the words match the faces); and then I figured out how to get Wine to use ALSA, just like everything else.
- BeetleB 9y ago
  I tried installing it a few months ago, and... could not get any sound. Similar experience several years ago. I'm sure I could Google and fix, but for me, it did not "just work". Don't get me wrong. For years, ALSA was a pain. But in the last 10 years, ALSA has always "just worked" for me. I think the only time I had to fiddle with ALSA in the last decade was to get the mic on a headset to work.
  - jhasse 9y ago
    For me, "Just Works" includes me not having to install it at all, not it being easy to set-up on LFS. Pulseaudio is pre-installed on Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      ALSA is part of the kernel, it's likely been pre-installed in every Linux you have ever run. It's not a mark against it that you choose to install distros developed to use pulseaudio.
SwellJoe 9y ago
I believe the universe I exist in is real, but how would I know for sure? Anyway, I haven't had to google about a pulseaudio problem in at least a few years. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop OS since 1995. I've hated Linux audio for most of that time, and I've broken it in every possible way. But, today, my Fedora system has sound that Just Works. I don't know how it Just Works (though I know it's pulseaudio), because I haven't had to learn...because it Just Works. It works for Steam games, it works for browser audio, it works for system notifications, it works for movies, it even works for audio and music software. It's pretty weird. Anyway, from what I can tell, the bugs, misfeatures, poorly thought out implementation, etc. all got worked out somewhere along the way. It took a long time. But, it did get fixed. Have you actually used it in the past couple of years?
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
  I did try to use it and discovered that it's impossible to configure mpd to run as a system service and be able to play sound while also allowing desktop applications to play sound. I forget all the details, but the way I figured out how to get sound to do what I wanted was to enable alsa dmix and to pipe everything possible through dmix, using pulseaudio only for the one or two essential apps that insist on it.
  - perakojotgenije 9y ago
    Funny, I just did that yesterday. I was reconfiguring my mpd server and I saw it was configured to use alsa (which, incidentally broke my sound occasionally). I set it up to use Pulseaudio and now I can listen to mpd server while listening to deezer.com that runs through browser while making a skype call on the same machine (not that I'd want to do it, anyway).
    - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
      When you log out of your desktop session, does mpd continue playing? I have mpd setup to stream via icecast so I can listen to my music remotely and the issue I was having was that when I logged out of my desktop, the music would stop playing because the sound server was tied to my desktop session.
shmerl 9y ago
Never had issues with PulseAudio in the recent times. I use Linux for all my desktop needs, including gaming. Of course if you have specific audio needs that require more realtime processing, you can for example use Jack.
gribbly 9y ago
I haven't used PulseAudio until very recently when Firefox started requiring it for audio (chrome/chromium still support plain ALSA), that said I haven't come across any problem, what should I be looking out for ?
- petepete 9y ago
  Nothing really, it's fine for nearly everything and just tends to get on with the job. The only bug that's affected me in the last couple of years was that the default volume on USB headsets was always set way too low. Pavucontrol helped sort it out https://freedesktop.org/software/pulseaudio/pavucontrol/ https://freedesktop.org/software/pulseaudio/pavucontrol/
  - Crespyl 9y ago
    The only problem I've had recently is that I can't seem to split up different ports on the same card (optical home theatre/soundbar for music, desktop stereo for everything else), but that's not something I was able to do with ALSA anyway. Something to do with opening the card in different profiles I think.
- aexaey 9y ago
  Mostly minor things nowadays. I've seen so far: - a while ago pa got audio routing wrong on a new/obscure laptop, wrong audio routing as in - speakers would not turn off if you plug in headphones. That eventually got fixed with dnf upgrade and no effort on my part; - on ultrabook, pa sucks noticeable amount of battery by waking up 100 times a second (while no audio is being played). Something akin to what this poor chap is describing: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/6d7776/pulseaudio_battery_usage/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/6d7776/pulseaudio_b...
petre 9y ago
OS X in incresingly less Unix-like with every new version. They even changed its name back to MacOS.
- eridius 9y ago
  You mean "macOS". But I don't see the relevance. Is it because the name no longer contains an "x" character? The X in OS X had no relation to unix, it was because it was the successor to MacOS 9 (and in fact the full name was originally Mac OS X).
  - petre 9y ago
    They even advertised it as Unix-like. https://www.apple.com/media/us/osx/2012/docs/OSX_for_UNIX_Users_TB_July2011.pdf https://www.apple.com/media/us/osx/2012/docs/OSX_for_UNIX_Us... We are using it for develoment but it's considerably more work to setup the develoment environment than installing a Linux distribution with everything we need available by default or a command away. Also in El Capitan the root user is disabled by default. http://www.infoworld.com/article/2988096/mac-os-x/sorry-unix-fans-os-x-el-capitan-kills-root.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/2988096/mac-os-x/sorry-unix...
    - lloeki 9y ago
      > installing a Linux distribution Linux != Unix. Darwin is much closer to BSD. > Also in El Capitan the root user is disabled by default. Lies. I never touched a thing and (on 10.13 ß): $ sudo su -l password: Galileo:~ root# ps -u root | wc -l 115 - You can't log into the UI as root (by default), and that is a good thing. - SEP prevents you (or any random script/software/installer you run) from meddling with system files and that is a good thing too, no different from sensible SELinux or AppArmor policies.
    - acdha 9y ago
      What all are you lumping into dev environment setup? For many years most projects have only needed two steps (CLI toolchain install, Homebrew) plus the project specific setup.
reitanqild 9y ago
User of desktop linux here (after 3 years of trying and failing with OS X). Also people at work are allowed to use desktop linux at work as long as we don't bother IT. (This with a serious company with even older more seriois roots.) I think desktop linux is still on the rise.
aexaey 9y ago
Very much this. The only big change with pa in last few years is - applications accepted and embraced it - to the point of dropping OSS & ALSA.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  I personally hope Linux application developers support PipeWire as it becomes available so that the usability issues around low-latency audio in Linux can be sorted out (i.e. it works out of the box): https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2017/06/20/fedora-workstation-26-and-beyond/ https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2017/06/20/fedora-workstation...
- digi_owl 9y ago
  I really hate seeing how Firefox on Linux is spiraling the drain in this regard. First GTK3, then PA. There really is a changing of the guard in Linux userspace, and the change is for the worse.
mijoharas 9y ago
To be fair, pulseaudio has stopped causing me problems, which in my book is equivalent to "got good". Now if only the same could be said for bluez...
jchw 9y ago
Maybe you really do live in a different universe, because my audio sounds good and I legitimately can't remember the last time I had to worry about it. It's been years, and now for the first time on Desktop Linux I can connect a Bluetooth or USB audio device without wondering if I could actually coax my software into using it.

throwaway2048 9y ago

Its nothing to do with "release early and often", its gems like this that they refuse to fix over ridiculous hubris. https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6237 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6237 Its going to end up exactly like glibc under Drepper, where distributions are forced to have a mile of patches because obviously broken shit isn't patched because the maintainers are too arrogant to admit fault.

grandinj 9y ago
I dont see any signs of "refuse to fix" there. I see a calm and reasonable discussion and an acknowledgement that some things need improving. Perhaps they refused to fix it in exactly the way the reporter wanted, but that's a far cry from arrogant refusal.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  > yes, it's a feature that we don't permit invalid user names(...) So, yeah, I don't think there's anything to fix in systemd here. I understand this is annoying, but still: the username is clearly not valid. > systemd is not the one coming up with the restrictions on user names, and while some distributions are less restrictive, many do enforce the same restrictions as we do. In order to make systemd unit files portable between systems we'll hence enforce something that resembles more the universally accepted set, rather than accept the most liberal set possible. These are pretty clear "refuse to fix". Though I do agree that this is a poor example to illustrate the point.
- isatty 9y ago
  What I saw was poettering spouting garbage about what he thinks is an invalid user name (when in reality, it is not and common tools like useradd don't complain about it). As the owner for a critical service like systemd (I don't use it, I prefer openRC on gentoo), he should know better.
  - Steeeve 9y ago
    grrr... your init system should not dictate what a valid username is. Your init system should use whatever users you've configured. I don't like your name. Therefore you get root. How on earth did this init system become so prevalent?

otterley 9y ago

How, exactly, has systemd "broken user space"? That's clear neither from the lkml thread, nor here. I'm not sure what this discussion even has to do with systemd; and I'm not even sure how you can "break user space" from a user space program, which init is. You might be able to modify your descendants' environment, but the rules under which that can happen are maintained and enforced by the kernel. It seems to me that if user space programs can do undesirable things, that's the fault of the kernel itself. To be sure, setting those boundaries and rules is one of the kernel's main jobs.

SwellJoe 9y ago
There are a couple of inits in common usage on Linux; systemd is now the most popular and ships standard on the most popular distributions. I can't imagine Linus would be feeling grouchy toward a nearly defunct init (that had been in use mostly unchanged since the 90s), so we're left with systemd. Unless you've got a better idea about what he means? It is not a secret that kernel devs have a love-hate relationship with systemd, and have for years. That's why Linus said, "You all presumably know why." He was speaking with context that everyone on the LKML already knows. First result when I google it (but it's been a thing for a long time and on many fronts with many interesting bugs and arguments): http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY1MzA http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY1MzA I don't really subscribe to the "systemd is terrible and is the worst thing that ever happened to Linux" theory, and I'm not trying to be one of those folks that takes every opportunity to make a thread about how much systemd sucks. I like systemd. I mean it when I say that. But, in this case, it seems obvious it is about systemd. I have a hard time coming up with another plausible theory. Edit: Also, now that I'm thinking about Linus and Poettering butting heads...well, that's hilarious. A couple of brilliant assholes arguing is funny to me. I dunno how much it's actually happened (and how much happened through proxies), but still. Funny.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  But you said specifically "...and systemd has broken userspace a lot." What did you mean by this? It seems like a complete nonsense statement in the context of user space breakage of the form the kernel is responsible for. The main clash between the kernel maintainers and the systemd maintainers was over systemd reading the kernel argv in an error prone way to trigger debug information. Other than that the interactions seem completely minimal. Linus Torvalds uses systemd at work and at home.

Qantourisc 9y ago

I still hear a friend complain he often has to restart pulse because sound just stops working for him. And IIRC there is still no way to set the maximum amount of audio-buffer (for the end-user, not from the applications; some people prefer the occasional buffer under-run over the higher delay).

simias 9y ago

Well, pulseaudio is still pretty crap as far as I'm concerned. After an update last week Spotify won't work anymore and the sound in Firefox is glitchy. I haven't taken the time to investigate what caused that exactly, and I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Not that I was a huge fan of ALSA either. It always felt a bit over-engineered for my taste. I can understand needing something like that if you want to make professional audio equipment with the Linux kernel but for my desktop use case OSS has always worked just fine for me and it didn't randomly break after an update. As for systemd, it's bearable and it mostly does what it's supposed to do, but it still feels a bit unnecessary and its security track record is not stellar so far. I prefer the simplicity of the BSD init personally.

nol13 9y ago
Seems to have settled down now(?) but firefox audio was def glitchy for a few releases after for me requiring system restarts to get sound back.