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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 Linu

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.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  "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." Does it? systemd is the init, the service manager, the interface to D-bus (and kernel devs had a bit of a tussle with the systemd devs about kdbus), the logging interface of most services (possibly including kernel logs), etc. systemd interacts with both the kernel directly (as the system init, as one interface to cgroups and namespaces, etc.) and with users (as everything else it does). I like it, but I understand the Borg accusations. "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." Searching the LKML for systemd seems to indicate otherwise. It seems like there have been a few scuffles over the years. I don't subscribe to the LKML or read it religiously and haven't for many years, so I'm mostly guessing based on context, but the context seems clear to me. Again, I ask, if not systemd, then which init is Linus talking about?
  - cthalupa 9y ago
    (Disclaimer: I hate systemd) The issue isn't him not knowing what systemd is, or not knowing that that is the init system Linus is talking about. He is aware of both. His issue is with your claim that systemd has broken userspace. You haven't seemed to provide any evidence of this being the case.
    - SwellJoe 9y ago
      We may simply be using different terminology. systemd has had bugs (a lot of them), many of which impacted the system at a high level (being the init and everything else), sometimes due to ineractions with the kernel, sometimes due to interactions with other parts of the system. Perhaps others wouldn't call that "userspace", I dunno. I figure if it affects users trying to run software it's "userspace". But, I'm happy to take the "broke userspace" assertion back if you don't like the term. Let's just say systemd has had a lot of bugs, sometimes stupid ones, and sometimes stubbornly held on to despite kernel devs or other devs asking for changes. I would hope we're not arguing about whether systemd has had an exciting number of bugs and compatibility issues (I think we can all agree on that, even if we like systemd). I inferred a bunch from my recollection of how the LKML has talked about systemd in the past. I assumed Linus was talking about systemd and that when he says he doesn't trust it, it was about systemd being sloppy and stubborn about compatibility and fixing bugs. I could be wrong about that.
      - cthalupa 9y ago
        Linus is generally very specific when he talks about things breaking userspace - changes to the kernel should not make things that work in userspace stop working. systemd doesn't really have the power to completely break userspace in the manner Linus refers to, though it certainly has the power to break a system. (One of my favorites was when a systemd update shut down dhclient but did not restart it, so once dhcp leases expired, servers lost connectivity. It was fun seeing several thousand machines go offline all at once. "Fun.")
        vidarh 9y ago
- hueving 9y ago
  Userspace programs that others frequently depend on the behavior of can easily break userspace. Look how many things break when you change ps or ls out with another tool.
petre 9y ago
Maybe eventually Linus will become so fed up with systemd, that he would write an init system of his own, which would become a major success just like git did. Then conversations like this one will be pointless, because everyone and their dog with the possible exception of RedHat would have long switched to Linus' init. Systemd and the whole controversy around it is anything but funny. It's upsetting and it already divided the community.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  It's a little funny. systemd has some great stuff in it. I have my nits to pick with it but, on the whole, it's better than what we had before. And, don't we all just want things to be a little better every day? I think it's all gonna work out fine in the end (and if not, we'll all be dead someday, anyway).
  - stuaxo 9y ago
    I would say the same with pulseaudio; before this, there were a mess of audio servers (esd / ksd or none) - now things are definitely better.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      I have not required a audio server in years, and i have not adopted PA. What i did was enable dmix, that comes with Alsa. A behavior that is even default Alsa these days if it detect that you use sound hardware without mixing. The one "issue" that PA "fixed" was that of temporary audio devices (bluetooth, USB). But then i find the whole notion of USB headphones (a pair of headphones soldered to a minimal USB sound card) a massive abomination. and i fail to see why paired Bluetooth audio devices are exposed directly into the /dev tree rather than behind the Bluetooth dongle device.
  - MereInterest 9y ago
    I use tmux and emacs --daemon constantly. My experience with systemd is that I need to check whether KillUserProcesses is enabled, or else systemd will kill my processes. My experience with init was nonexistent, because it never came up as an issue.
toyg 9y ago
> a couple of brilliant assholes Define brilliant. One changed the computing landscape by starting (and running for decades) the biggest opensource copyleft project in the history of mankind; the other is a bog-standard corporate engineer who simply leverages his parent company status to piss off most people and get away with it. Placing them on the same level is an insult to Linus, who might occasionally be an asshole but is still the most effective leader the opensource community has ever seen.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Assholes can be effective leaders of community.
  - mijoharas 9y ago
    I think the only problem that the parent comment had with the quote was about the brilliant part being assigned to Poettering. EDIT/NOTE: I don't have opinions on either Linus or Lennart. I use both of their software daily.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  The funny thing is that Torvalds is not much of an asshole unless you violate the trust he have placed in you. He will gladly chastise himself for errors etc, and is quite humble in public. Poettering on the other hand have a history of hubris and assholeness. Consider for example that he not only heckled a presenter at a conference. But when the presenter bowed out early he climbed the stage, beer bottle in hand, to grab the microphone. It would not surprise me of Poettering have never met hardship during his school years (apparently the signing scheme used in journald was based on his brother's doctoral thesis no less) until he hit the net with his projects, and simply do not know how the handle negative feedback.
digi_owl 9y ago
Poettering is perhaps an asshole, but Torvalds reputation for being so is overhyped to put it mildly. Never mind that they have faced off (sort of) on camera at least once, with Poettering basically missing the point again and again that not just Torvalds but also other long term kernel devs on the stage was raising.

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.

SwellJoe 9y ago
"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." Does it? systemd is the init, the service manager, the interface to D-bus (and kernel devs had a bit of a tussle with the systemd devs about kdbus), the logging interface of most services (possibly including kernel logs), etc. systemd interacts with both the kernel directly (as the system init, as one interface to cgroups and namespaces, etc.) and with users (as everything else it does). I like it, but I understand the Borg accusations. "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." Searching the LKML for systemd seems to indicate otherwise. It seems like there have been a few scuffles over the years. I don't subscribe to the LKML or read it religiously and haven't for many years, so I'm mostly guessing based on context, but the context seems clear to me. Again, I ask, if not systemd, then which init is Linus talking about?
- cthalupa 9y ago
  (Disclaimer: I hate systemd) The issue isn't him not knowing what systemd is, or not knowing that that is the init system Linus is talking about. He is aware of both. His issue is with your claim that systemd has broken userspace. You haven't seemed to provide any evidence of this being the case.
  - SwellJoe 9y ago
    We may simply be using different terminology. systemd has had bugs (a lot of them), many of which impacted the system at a high level (being the init and everything else), sometimes due to ineractions with the kernel, sometimes due to interactions with other parts of the system. Perhaps others wouldn't call that "userspace", I dunno. I figure if it affects users trying to run software it's "userspace". But, I'm happy to take the "broke userspace" assertion back if you don't like the term. Let's just say systemd has had a lot of bugs, sometimes stupid ones, and sometimes stubbornly held on to despite kernel devs or other devs asking for changes. I would hope we're not arguing about whether systemd has had an exciting number of bugs and compatibility issues (I think we can all agree on that, even if we like systemd). I inferred a bunch from my recollection of how the LKML has talked about systemd in the past. I assumed Linus was talking about systemd and that when he says he doesn't trust it, it was about systemd being sloppy and stubborn about compatibility and fixing bugs. I could be wrong about that.
    - cthalupa 9y ago
      Linus is generally very specific when he talks about things breaking userspace - changes to the kernel should not make things that work in userspace stop working. systemd doesn't really have the power to completely break userspace in the manner Linus refers to, though it certainly has the power to break a system. (One of my favorites was when a systemd update shut down dhclient but did not restart it, so once dhcp leases expired, servers lost connectivity. It was fun seeing several thousand machines go offline all at once. "Fun.")
      - vidarh 9y ago
hueving 9y ago
Userspace programs that others frequently depend on the behavior of can easily break userspace. Look how many things break when you change ps or ls out with another tool.

petre 9y ago

Maybe eventually Linus will become so fed up with systemd, that he would write an init system of his own, which would become a major success just like git did. Then conversations like this one will be pointless, because everyone and their dog with the possible exception of RedHat would have long switched to Linus' init. Systemd and the whole controversy around it is anything but funny. It's upsetting and it already divided the community.

SwellJoe 9y ago
It's a little funny. systemd has some great stuff in it. I have my nits to pick with it but, on the whole, it's better than what we had before. And, don't we all just want things to be a little better every day? I think it's all gonna work out fine in the end (and if not, we'll all be dead someday, anyway).
- stuaxo 9y ago
  I would say the same with pulseaudio; before this, there were a mess of audio servers (esd / ksd or none) - now things are definitely better.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    I have not required a audio server in years, and i have not adopted PA. What i did was enable dmix, that comes with Alsa. A behavior that is even default Alsa these days if it detect that you use sound hardware without mixing. The one "issue" that PA "fixed" was that of temporary audio devices (bluetooth, USB). But then i find the whole notion of USB headphones (a pair of headphones soldered to a minimal USB sound card) a massive abomination. and i fail to see why paired Bluetooth audio devices are exposed directly into the /dev tree rather than behind the Bluetooth dongle device.
- MereInterest 9y ago
  I use tmux and emacs --daemon constantly. My experience with systemd is that I need to check whether KillUserProcesses is enabled, or else systemd will kill my processes. My experience with init was nonexistent, because it never came up as an issue.

toyg 9y ago

> a couple of brilliant assholes Define brilliant. One changed the computing landscape by starting (and running for decades) the biggest opensource copyleft project in the history of mankind; the other is a bog-standard corporate engineer who simply leverages his parent company status to piss off most people and get away with it. Placing them on the same level is an insult to Linus, who might occasionally be an asshole but is still the most effective leader the opensource community has ever seen.

mmjaa 9y ago
Assholes can be effective leaders of community.
- mijoharas 9y ago
  I think the only problem that the parent comment had with the quote was about the brilliant part being assigned to Poettering. EDIT/NOTE: I don't have opinions on either Linus or Lennart. I use both of their software daily.
digi_owl 9y ago
The funny thing is that Torvalds is not much of an asshole unless you violate the trust he have placed in you. He will gladly chastise himself for errors etc, and is quite humble in public. Poettering on the other hand have a history of hubris and assholeness. Consider for example that he not only heckled a presenter at a conference. But when the presenter bowed out early he climbed the stage, beer bottle in hand, to grab the microphone. It would not surprise me of Poettering have never met hardship during his school years (apparently the signing scheme used in journald was based on his brother's doctoral thesis no less) until he hit the net with his projects, and simply do not know how the handle negative feedback.

digi_owl 9y ago

Poettering is perhaps an asshole, but Torvalds reputation for being so is overhyped to put it mildly. Never mind that they have faced off (sort of) on camera at least once, with Poettering basically missing the point again and again that not just Torvalds but also other long term kernel devs on the stage was raising.