9 ms·

Sad news all over industry. Red Hat creating huge mess throughout linux with systemd for years. Solaris killed. Thankfully zfs continues living trough FreeBSD.

Sad news all over industry. Red Hat creating huge mess throughout linux with systemd for years. Solaris killed. Thankfully zfs continues living trough FreeBSD. MariaDB is forked at the last moment. Some of my work depends on VirtualBox. Quote from American Gods: “A single product manufactured by a single company for a single global market. Spicy, medium, or chunky! They get a choice, of course! OF COURSE! But they are buying salsa.”

nailer 9y ago
Every major Linux distro uses systemd. I know its opponents are vocal but a bunch of us are silently enjoying the simplicity of .service files and systemd timers.
- isatty 9y ago
  I'm using FreeBSD for servers and thankfully Gentoo remains on OpenRC. If they switch I'll move my home computers to FreeBSD too.
  - xenophonf 9y ago
    Except FreeBSD is considering moving to something like launchd or systemd itself, because honestly a SMF isn't a bad idea compared to init scripts, which are rather bare bones.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      No they are not. The former head of Launchd development at Apple was pushing to have FreeBSD adopt Launchd, but got rebuffed. So instead he has forked FreeBSD into NextBSD.
      - Mordak 9y ago
        And looking at the commit logs for NextBSD [0] it is dead now too. [0] https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD
        al452 9y ago
        True but in fairness NextBSD was only ever a technology demo / proof of concept.
    - hedora 9y ago
      SMF runs circles around systemd. I used it recently, and realized it is what systemd is trying to clone. It was kind of like learning Unix after coming from a DOS background. If FreeBSD switches to systemd, I'll stick with OpenBSD. OpenBSD is as likely to switch as they are to rewrite the kernel in rust and go.
      - X86BSD 9y ago
        FreeBSD will never, ever adopt systemd. That I am certain of. Even if the license wasn't an issue, and you could easily yank out all the non portable Linux code, and adopt it into BSD, the code quality, and the engineering of it would not meet BSD standards for adoption. TrueOS just started using OpenRC and seem happy with it so far.
        JdeBP 9y ago
        The TrueOS people still need to add proper service management and a decent service management toolset. I suggested to them back in January 2017 that since OpenRC has s6 integration, they might do well to add s6 to that to gain full service management. I never received a reply. I haven't heard that Laurent Bercot was contacted, either. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13458186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13458186 * http://www.mail-archive.com/supervision@list.skarnet.org/msg01570.html http://www.mail-archive.com/supervision@list.skarnet.org/msg... I personally use the nosh system and service managers on FreeBSD and TrueOS, of course. I just wrote up a more detailed account of how I used them on TrueOS to run the PC-BSD desktop login and chooser utility under proper service management, and to improve several parts of that subsystem. * https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/390089/5132 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/390089/5132
  - peatmoss 9y ago
    I hope systemd doesn't taint us all for more intelligent init systems. RC scripts do have their drawbacks. If I were choosing a "most interesting alternative to systemd and classic init" award, it'd go to GNU Shepherd which is the init system of GUIX as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guix_System_Distribution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guix_System_Distribution All the talk about BSD and launchd has me thinking Shepherd might be on to something. Launchd is XMLed up from here to Sunday, whereas Shepherd can have all the benefits of Scheme's S-EXPRs being tree structures while also having a great scripting language (Scheme) at your disposal.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  I guess many that are against it, would rather have a pure UNIX V installation, eventually running twm.
  - binaryapparatus 9y ago
    Made me switch my main desktop from Arch to FreeBSD...
  - AnonymousPlanet 9y ago
    I don't. I just want the core components of Linux to be 1.) done by people who have enough experience to know the perils of overengineering and have done some serious software maintenance and debugging themselves 2.) done by project leads who don't think that changes that break things in a major way can be buried somewhere down in the changelogs 3.) done by people who don't react in a jaded way to every piece of criticism, regardless of the tone. I don't think Linux would have gotten this far if its core wouldn't be influenced by the design principles of Unix and the kernel project wouldn't be run by a person who takes care regarding incompatible changes. Look at ReactOS or Wine. I'm worried that systemd might prove to be a major headache in the future.
  - hedora 9y ago
    I'd like something better than UNIX V and that I can understand. In my experience, systemd fails on both points. For example, and understanding of user permissions under systemd is probably beyond 99% of developers' expertise.
- binaryapparatus 9y ago
  Simplicity of systemd timers? Right.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Compared to the alternatives? Definitely. As an application developer and hobby sysadmin, systemd is a godsend over the misconfigured and broken stuff distributions have delivered for years. systemd has made my work a lot more effective, and I’ve gained massive productivity.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      > As an application developer and hobby sysadmin, systemd is a godsend over the misconfigured and broken stuff distributions have delivered for years. And that is roughly the size of the problem. If you're an application developer or a hobby sysadmin then probably systemd is good for you, but if you're an experienced sysadmin it spells 'fixed what wasn't broken' and it re-introduces many issues that were already thought about, taken care of and laid to rest.
      - digi_owl 9y ago
        Bingo. Way way too much of Linux these days is by devs for devs, and screw everyone else. Note the rise of "devops" that is basically about getting a straight line from devs to management so devs can sideline ops and their naysaying of the latest shinies devs wnats to sprinkle the projects with. Another thing is that there is less and less interest in maintenance, because maintenance is not fun. The GNU generation i slowly leaving, and is being replaced with the "fun" generation that is hell bent on rewriting working, if crufty, systems using the latest language fads over a caffeine fueled weekend...
        jacquesm 9y ago
        There are two jobs that were rolled into the developer role that we will sorely miss in the longer term, the first was 'analyst', the second 'sysadmin/sysop'. Dumbing these down to make it possible to run these highly skilled and specialized jobs as part-time job without relevant training is one of the main reasons the state of software is what it is.
- notalaser 9y ago
  In the meantime, a bunch of us developers are desperately trying to figure out what the fsck broke this time, drinking our sorrows about this new life where we can't debug anything that happens at boot, and frantically setting up BSDs on our laptops at home, so that we can at least get a break from this mess when we're at home. I (thankfully only) used to do Linux BSPs in a former life. In the last year or so of doing that, I think we spent about 15-20% of a project's time debugging systemd problems and working around it being too smart for its own good. 20% for the bloody init system sounds fine until you realize the rest of the time included stuff like writing or expanding device drivers.
  - sjellis 9y ago
    "I (thankfully only) used to do Linux BSPs in a former life. In the last year or so of doing that, I think we spent about 15-20% of a project's time debugging systemd problems and working around it being too smart for its own good." It would be great to see in-depth experience reports for systemd, good and bad. The overwhelming majority of anti-systemd commentary has just been noise for so long, and as somebody who is very much in favor of systemd, I'd love to see some real discussion and actual informed criticism.
    - nottorp 9y ago
      The way I read systemd news, it's not worth analyzing it because Poettering will say 'won't fix' or 'working as intended'.
      - the_why_of_y 9y ago
        This query returns 701 fixed bugs: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&product=systemd&query_format=advanced&resolution=FIXED&order=priority%2Cbug_severity&limit=0 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED...
        jwilk 9y ago
        FWIW, systemd uses GitHub for bug tracking these days: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues
- binaryapparatus 9y ago
  > opponents are vocal > bunch of us are silently enjoying Sorry to have to address this. It very much looks like underhand systemd forum/post control I have seen on a lot of other places. I wouldn't bother to respond but I lived in a former communist country and formulations like this kind of make me twitch. So number of opponents is very minor but they make lots of noise. While the 'normal' people, those who really enjoy dictate are great majority, alas, not very vocal. This is communist lingo bro. I am not saying you have anything to do with systemd directly, but this kind of crowd control and logic can be traced all over the internet wherever anybody questions systemd sanity. Oh my karma points! I must admit I care more about FOSS and Linux health than what I care about my points. Things have to be said.
  - sjellis 9y ago
    "Things have to be said." Then say them. Simply posting that systemd is bad, and appealing to your position as an experienced UNIX user without giving specifics is just signalling at best. I probably count as a Veteran System Administrator myself, and personally I am tired of anti-systemd people coming into conversations that have little to do with systemd, and trying to hijack the conversation with content-light posts.
    - binaryapparatus 9y ago
      I have used systemd only as one of the data points in overall state of the industry, please read my initial post. It is important point for me because I used to use Linux everywhere and rely on its modularity and security. I am looking at the big picture and how trends correlate, not particularly focused on systemd only. Rest of the conversation emerged because 'silent majority' (lol) focused on systemd only. You are aware of the feature creep and taking over of every sane unix/linux utility? Usually with very questionable results, changing su or dns resolver, for the worse? You know about number of vulnerabilities that are introduced by systemd, then dismissed and not-our-bug or wontfix? You are aware of the tying in systemd with every other program they can get their hands on? That makes harder and harder to run properly secured machine that does not have systemd. Not saying to you since you know system administration but: This is a BAD thing. You probably know about all vulnerabilities introduced by systemd? Coupled with inability to not use systemd, with its huge attack surface this makes Linux much less secure and monolith. Back to my initial intention: there is huge trend throughout the industry that kills variety and ties in systems in a monolith mess. Systemd is just one of the data points. I care same way about Oracle buying Sun with one of the main reasons being MySQL. Thanks to MariaDB folks that lock in didn't happen but I was aware they will try it as soon as Oracle got hands on MySQL.
chx 9y ago
> MariaDB is forked at the last moment. What is this about?
- binaryapparatus 9y ago
  About Oracle owning MySQL?
- hedora 9y ago
  It should read "MariaDB forked from Oracle MySQL at the last moment". (And I think Oracle MySQL is still alive/supported)
  - binaryapparatus 9y ago
    You are right, sorry, non-native English speaker here. While most of the time I get it right sometimes I don't. That's what I wanted to say. Supported yes. Having history of Oracle handling of projects, Solaris being last example, I am very glad that we have active MariaDB.
  - chx 9y ago
    Yeah, so why the "last moment"? That's why I was confused.
AsyncAwait 9y ago
> Red Hat creating huge mess throughout linux with systemd for years Care to elaborate on the 'mess' created? I highly doubt you even used it yourself, sounds like something you've heard and are repeating for some cheap karma. The init scripts used before were the real mess, if you ask me. It's getting really tiring to hear these systemd rants with no good reasons to back them up. I guess ranting against systemd is the cool thing to do, just like calling Apple users sheep once was, there's no need for facts, just hyperbole.
- holydude 9y ago
  Systemd is / was inspired by solaris smf to some extent. It is not that bad but the execution was rather poor.
  - JdeBP 9y ago
    Actually, it was SystemXVI that was inspired by the SMF. * https://github.com/ServiceManager/ServiceManager/ https://github.com/ServiceManager/ServiceManager/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10212770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10212770)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- binaryapparatus 9y ago
  I am 46 years old, with over 25 years of programming and system administration experience. I've been here before internet existed. You better believe I know what I am talking about. I couldn't care less about karma kid.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    Maybe you could explain it for us mere mortals.
    - AnonymousPlanet 9y ago

nailer 9y ago

Every major Linux distro uses systemd. I know its opponents are vocal but a bunch of us are silently enjoying the simplicity of .service files and systemd timers.

isatty 9y ago
I'm using FreeBSD for servers and thankfully Gentoo remains on OpenRC. If they switch I'll move my home computers to FreeBSD too.
- xenophonf 9y ago
  Except FreeBSD is considering moving to something like launchd or systemd itself, because honestly a SMF isn't a bad idea compared to init scripts, which are rather bare bones.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    No they are not. The former head of Launchd development at Apple was pushing to have FreeBSD adopt Launchd, but got rebuffed. So instead he has forked FreeBSD into NextBSD.
    - Mordak 9y ago
      And looking at the commit logs for NextBSD [0] it is dead now too. [0] https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD
      - al452 9y ago
        True but in fairness NextBSD was only ever a technology demo / proof of concept.
  - hedora 9y ago
    SMF runs circles around systemd. I used it recently, and realized it is what systemd is trying to clone. It was kind of like learning Unix after coming from a DOS background. If FreeBSD switches to systemd, I'll stick with OpenBSD. OpenBSD is as likely to switch as they are to rewrite the kernel in rust and go.
    - X86BSD 9y ago
      FreeBSD will never, ever adopt systemd. That I am certain of. Even if the license wasn't an issue, and you could easily yank out all the non portable Linux code, and adopt it into BSD, the code quality, and the engineering of it would not meet BSD standards for adoption. TrueOS just started using OpenRC and seem happy with it so far.
      - JdeBP 9y ago
        The TrueOS people still need to add proper service management and a decent service management toolset. I suggested to them back in January 2017 that since OpenRC has s6 integration, they might do well to add s6 to that to gain full service management. I never received a reply. I haven't heard that Laurent Bercot was contacted, either. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13458186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13458186 * http://www.mail-archive.com/supervision@list.skarnet.org/msg01570.html http://www.mail-archive.com/supervision@list.skarnet.org/msg... I personally use the nosh system and service managers on FreeBSD and TrueOS, of course. I just wrote up a more detailed account of how I used them on TrueOS to run the PC-BSD desktop login and chooser utility under proper service management, and to improve several parts of that subsystem. * https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/390089/5132 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/390089/5132
- peatmoss 9y ago
  I hope systemd doesn't taint us all for more intelligent init systems. RC scripts do have their drawbacks. If I were choosing a "most interesting alternative to systemd and classic init" award, it'd go to GNU Shepherd which is the init system of GUIX as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guix_System_Distribution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guix_System_Distribution All the talk about BSD and launchd has me thinking Shepherd might be on to something. Launchd is XMLed up from here to Sunday, whereas Shepherd can have all the benefits of Scheme's S-EXPRs being tree structures while also having a great scripting language (Scheme) at your disposal.
pjmlp 9y ago
I guess many that are against it, would rather have a pure UNIX V installation, eventually running twm.
- binaryapparatus 9y ago
  Made me switch my main desktop from Arch to FreeBSD...
- AnonymousPlanet 9y ago
  I don't. I just want the core components of Linux to be 1.) done by people who have enough experience to know the perils of overengineering and have done some serious software maintenance and debugging themselves 2.) done by project leads who don't think that changes that break things in a major way can be buried somewhere down in the changelogs 3.) done by people who don't react in a jaded way to every piece of criticism, regardless of the tone. I don't think Linux would have gotten this far if its core wouldn't be influenced by the design principles of Unix and the kernel project wouldn't be run by a person who takes care regarding incompatible changes. Look at ReactOS or Wine. I'm worried that systemd might prove to be a major headache in the future.
- hedora 9y ago
  I'd like something better than UNIX V and that I can understand. In my experience, systemd fails on both points. For example, and understanding of user permissions under systemd is probably beyond 99% of developers' expertise.
binaryapparatus 9y ago
Simplicity of systemd timers? Right.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Compared to the alternatives? Definitely. As an application developer and hobby sysadmin, systemd is a godsend over the misconfigured and broken stuff distributions have delivered for years. systemd has made my work a lot more effective, and I’ve gained massive productivity.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > As an application developer and hobby sysadmin, systemd is a godsend over the misconfigured and broken stuff distributions have delivered for years. And that is roughly the size of the problem. If you're an application developer or a hobby sysadmin then probably systemd is good for you, but if you're an experienced sysadmin it spells 'fixed what wasn't broken' and it re-introduces many issues that were already thought about, taken care of and laid to rest.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Bingo. Way way too much of Linux these days is by devs for devs, and screw everyone else. Note the rise of "devops" that is basically about getting a straight line from devs to management so devs can sideline ops and their naysaying of the latest shinies devs wnats to sprinkle the projects with. Another thing is that there is less and less interest in maintenance, because maintenance is not fun. The GNU generation i slowly leaving, and is being replaced with the "fun" generation that is hell bent on rewriting working, if crufty, systems using the latest language fads over a caffeine fueled weekend...
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        There are two jobs that were rolled into the developer role that we will sorely miss in the longer term, the first was 'analyst', the second 'sysadmin/sysop'. Dumbing these down to make it possible to run these highly skilled and specialized jobs as part-time job without relevant training is one of the main reasons the state of software is what it is.
notalaser 9y ago
In the meantime, a bunch of us developers are desperately trying to figure out what the fsck broke this time, drinking our sorrows about this new life where we can't debug anything that happens at boot, and frantically setting up BSDs on our laptops at home, so that we can at least get a break from this mess when we're at home. I (thankfully only) used to do Linux BSPs in a former life. In the last year or so of doing that, I think we spent about 15-20% of a project's time debugging systemd problems and working around it being too smart for its own good. 20% for the bloody init system sounds fine until you realize the rest of the time included stuff like writing or expanding device drivers.
- sjellis 9y ago
  "I (thankfully only) used to do Linux BSPs in a former life. In the last year or so of doing that, I think we spent about 15-20% of a project's time debugging systemd problems and working around it being too smart for its own good." It would be great to see in-depth experience reports for systemd, good and bad. The overwhelming majority of anti-systemd commentary has just been noise for so long, and as somebody who is very much in favor of systemd, I'd love to see some real discussion and actual informed criticism.
  - nottorp 9y ago
    The way I read systemd news, it's not worth analyzing it because Poettering will say 'won't fix' or 'working as intended'.
    - the_why_of_y 9y ago
      This query returns 701 fixed bugs: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&product=systemd&query_format=advanced&resolution=FIXED&order=priority%2Cbug_severity&limit=0 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED...
      - jwilk 9y ago
        FWIW, systemd uses GitHub for bug tracking these days: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues
binaryapparatus 9y ago
> opponents are vocal > bunch of us are silently enjoying Sorry to have to address this. It very much looks like underhand systemd forum/post control I have seen on a lot of other places. I wouldn't bother to respond but I lived in a former communist country and formulations like this kind of make me twitch. So number of opponents is very minor but they make lots of noise. While the 'normal' people, those who really enjoy dictate are great majority, alas, not very vocal. This is communist lingo bro. I am not saying you have anything to do with systemd directly, but this kind of crowd control and logic can be traced all over the internet wherever anybody questions systemd sanity. Oh my karma points! I must admit I care more about FOSS and Linux health than what I care about my points. Things have to be said.
- sjellis 9y ago
  "Things have to be said." Then say them. Simply posting that systemd is bad, and appealing to your position as an experienced UNIX user without giving specifics is just signalling at best. I probably count as a Veteran System Administrator myself, and personally I am tired of anti-systemd people coming into conversations that have little to do with systemd, and trying to hijack the conversation with content-light posts.
  - binaryapparatus 9y ago
    I have used systemd only as one of the data points in overall state of the industry, please read my initial post. It is important point for me because I used to use Linux everywhere and rely on its modularity and security. I am looking at the big picture and how trends correlate, not particularly focused on systemd only. Rest of the conversation emerged because 'silent majority' (lol) focused on systemd only. You are aware of the feature creep and taking over of every sane unix/linux utility? Usually with very questionable results, changing su or dns resolver, for the worse? You know about number of vulnerabilities that are introduced by systemd, then dismissed and not-our-bug or wontfix? You are aware of the tying in systemd with every other program they can get their hands on? That makes harder and harder to run properly secured machine that does not have systemd. Not saying to you since you know system administration but: This is a BAD thing. You probably know about all vulnerabilities introduced by systemd? Coupled with inability to not use systemd, with its huge attack surface this makes Linux much less secure and monolith. Back to my initial intention: there is huge trend throughout the industry that kills variety and ties in systems in a monolith mess. Systemd is just one of the data points. I care same way about Oracle buying Sun with one of the main reasons being MySQL. Thanks to MariaDB folks that lock in didn't happen but I was aware they will try it as soon as Oracle got hands on MySQL.

chx 9y ago

> MariaDB is forked at the last moment. What is this about?

binaryapparatus 9y ago
About Oracle owning MySQL?
hedora 9y ago
It should read "MariaDB forked from Oracle MySQL at the last moment". (And I think Oracle MySQL is still alive/supported)
- binaryapparatus 9y ago
  You are right, sorry, non-native English speaker here. While most of the time I get it right sometimes I don't. That's what I wanted to say. Supported yes. Having history of Oracle handling of projects, Solaris being last example, I am very glad that we have active MariaDB.
- chx 9y ago
  Yeah, so why the "last moment"? That's why I was confused.

AsyncAwait 9y ago

> Red Hat creating huge mess throughout linux with systemd for years Care to elaborate on the 'mess' created? I highly doubt you even used it yourself, sounds like something you've heard and are repeating for some cheap karma. The init scripts used before were the real mess, if you ask me. It's getting really tiring to hear these systemd rants with no good reasons to back them up. I guess ranting against systemd is the cool thing to do, just like calling Apple users sheep once was, there's no need for facts, just hyperbole.

holydude 9y ago
Systemd is / was inspired by solaris smf to some extent. It is not that bad but the execution was rather poor.
- JdeBP 9y ago
  Actually, it was SystemXVI that was inspired by the SMF. * https://github.com/ServiceManager/ServiceManager/ https://github.com/ServiceManager/ServiceManager/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10212770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10212770)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
binaryapparatus 9y ago
I am 46 years old, with over 25 years of programming and system administration experience. I've been here before internet existed. You better believe I know what I am talking about. I couldn't care less about karma kid.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Maybe you could explain it for us mere mortals.
  - AnonymousPlanet 9y ago