7 ms·

Reading the slides this seems really interesting. A way to allow you simple copy your home (that may be in an encrypted loop file) to a Pendrive and have all yo

by m45t3r 7y ago

Reading the slides this seems really interesting. A way to allow you simple copy your home (that may be in an encrypted loop file) to a Pendrive and have all your configuration anywhere seems like a big win. This will make the only stateful thing in my system (my home directory) much easier to backup and move. Also the death of /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd (state in a directory that should only contain configuration files). And encrypted home on suspend. Like most systemd things, this should be completely optional. Also like most systemd things, people will complain that this is unnecessary bloat.

fhennig 7y ago
It is completly optional, also it is optional to use home encryption (this comes up a lot when people want to log in on a remote server with a user that uses homed). homed users and conventional users can exist side by side.
- sverige 7y ago
  Funny, that's what I heard when systemd was introduced: "it's completely optional." And yet today I don't think I would use both hands counting the Linux distros without systemd, though far more than that number tried and finally gave up.
  - eropple 7y ago
    I'm sure they all gave up because of politics, too, and not because systemd gets way more right than it gets wrong despite a vocal minority of noncontributory angst.
    - sverige 7y ago
      Unfortunately, it will probably take ten years to see the real effects of these decisions on the ecosystem. I hope you're right that this is the way to go, but I fear I'll be right that Linux will be at least as opaque as Windows to anyone who wants an entry point into learning about operating systems and systems administration without having to pay to take classes.
      - johnny22 7y ago
        I much prefer my system with systemd, because it's less opaque than when i started using Linux in 1998 (attempted earlier, but failed).
  - m45t3r 7y ago
    > though far more than that number tried and finally gave up. I think people either should try to maintain their own distro, be a maintainer for their distro of choice or stop complaining about the decisions maintainers from their distro take for them. I mean, at least in Arch systemd seemed to be the obvious choice: it reduced the complexity for the maintainers. Arch used to be a combination of multiple shells scripts maintained by Arch package maintainers. Since systemd they can use the .service file that multiple programs already have upstream, or they can write themselves one that is much easier and less error prone than the shell script approach used before. I am sure that the maintainers from Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Madriva, etc. all analyzed the advantages/disadvantages of migrating to systemd vs. maintaining their in-house solution (that they all had before, one way or another). If you still discord from them, why are you using one specific distro? You can pick any other one that is not using systemd, like Devuan, Void Linux, Alpine, etc.
    - sverige 7y ago
      My point was that many who tried to avoid systemd found it to be very difficult, despite the vague assurances up front that it would be "optional." Now "the maintainers" (i.e., Lennart and friends) are contemplating making the file system more opaque. Instead of saying it will be optional, just say it up front: this is what Red Hat wants, so it's coming to your distro soon too, whether you like it or not, because it will become a dependency of systemd, or vice versa. It's the lying about it that I can't stand.
      - m45t3r 7y ago
        > My point was that many who tried to avoid systemd found it to be very difficult Avoiding systemd is not difficult, it is just that using systemd makes things easier. You have one codebase shared between multiple distros where most of your init logic is, instead of having to maintain your own init scripts somewhere by yourself. > because it will become a dependency of systemd, or vice versa. This is not true. I don't know many things that are dependend of systemd running as a init system.
        7y ago
  - SahAssar 7y ago
    Where did anyone say that using systemd would be optional on distros built on systemd? It's the init system, if the distro provides an alternative it's "optional", if the distro doesn't it isn't. Sounds like your beef is with a specific distro, not systemd in general.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  I hope what you say is true and will remain true in a year or five. Because I was happy about Systemd at the beginning (it looks like we have another init, good). Then it turned out it wasn't engineered to be an independent init system and it practically killed any possibility of replacing it with another init should the user want it. The distributors capitulated one by one. The last big one, Debian, didn't give up without a fight and produced Devuan. But because it's not an official Debian variant, if your living depends on it, you will hesitate before you use it for long-term projects. That's the sad consequence of a few design decisions plus a bit of politics.
nine_k 7y ago
This sounds interesting enough to implement in a systemd-free way.
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  I do not think it would be notably magical. Please contact via https://cameronnemo.gitlab.io https://cameronnemo.gitlab.io if you do take up the effort.
michaelmrose 7y ago
It's pretty easy to backup and move your home or any other directory now. If anything this actually makes such more complicated. Incidentally you can already lose luks keys on suspend and reacquire them on resume now. Its called go-luks-suspend https://github.com/guns/go-luks-suspend https://github.com/guns/go-luks-suspend It works as long as suspend does.

by m45t3r 7y ago

fhennig 7y ago

It is completly optional, also it is optional to use home encryption (this comes up a lot when people want to log in on a remote server with a user that uses homed). homed users and conventional users can exist side by side.

sverige 7y ago
Funny, that's what I heard when systemd was introduced: "it's completely optional." And yet today I don't think I would use both hands counting the Linux distros without systemd, though far more than that number tried and finally gave up.
- eropple 7y ago
  I'm sure they all gave up because of politics, too, and not because systemd gets way more right than it gets wrong despite a vocal minority of noncontributory angst.
  - sverige 7y ago
    Unfortunately, it will probably take ten years to see the real effects of these decisions on the ecosystem. I hope you're right that this is the way to go, but I fear I'll be right that Linux will be at least as opaque as Windows to anyone who wants an entry point into learning about operating systems and systems administration without having to pay to take classes.
    - johnny22 7y ago
      I much prefer my system with systemd, because it's less opaque than when i started using Linux in 1998 (attempted earlier, but failed).
- m45t3r 7y ago
  > though far more than that number tried and finally gave up. I think people either should try to maintain their own distro, be a maintainer for their distro of choice or stop complaining about the decisions maintainers from their distro take for them. I mean, at least in Arch systemd seemed to be the obvious choice: it reduced the complexity for the maintainers. Arch used to be a combination of multiple shells scripts maintained by Arch package maintainers. Since systemd they can use the .service file that multiple programs already have upstream, or they can write themselves one that is much easier and less error prone than the shell script approach used before. I am sure that the maintainers from Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Madriva, etc. all analyzed the advantages/disadvantages of migrating to systemd vs. maintaining their in-house solution (that they all had before, one way or another). If you still discord from them, why are you using one specific distro? You can pick any other one that is not using systemd, like Devuan, Void Linux, Alpine, etc.
  - sverige 7y ago
    My point was that many who tried to avoid systemd found it to be very difficult, despite the vague assurances up front that it would be "optional." Now "the maintainers" (i.e., Lennart and friends) are contemplating making the file system more opaque. Instead of saying it will be optional, just say it up front: this is what Red Hat wants, so it's coming to your distro soon too, whether you like it or not, because it will become a dependency of systemd, or vice versa. It's the lying about it that I can't stand.
    - m45t3r 7y ago
      > My point was that many who tried to avoid systemd found it to be very difficult Avoiding systemd is not difficult, it is just that using systemd makes things easier. You have one codebase shared between multiple distros where most of your init logic is, instead of having to maintain your own init scripts somewhere by yourself. > because it will become a dependency of systemd, or vice versa. This is not true. I don't know many things that are dependend of systemd running as a init system.
      - 7y ago
- SahAssar 7y ago
  Where did anyone say that using systemd would be optional on distros built on systemd? It's the init system, if the distro provides an alternative it's "optional", if the distro doesn't it isn't. Sounds like your beef is with a specific distro, not systemd in general.
dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
I hope what you say is true and will remain true in a year or five. Because I was happy about Systemd at the beginning (it looks like we have another init, good). Then it turned out it wasn't engineered to be an independent init system and it practically killed any possibility of replacing it with another init should the user want it. The distributors capitulated one by one. The last big one, Debian, didn't give up without a fight and produced Devuan. But because it's not an official Debian variant, if your living depends on it, you will hesitate before you use it for long-term projects. That's the sad consequence of a few design decisions plus a bit of politics.

nine_k 7y ago

This sounds interesting enough to implement in a systemd-free way.

CameronNemo 7y ago
I do not think it would be notably magical. Please contact via https://cameronnemo.gitlab.io https://cameronnemo.gitlab.io if you do take up the effort.

michaelmrose 7y ago

It's pretty easy to backup and move your home or any other directory now. If anything this actually makes such more complicated. Incidentally you can already lose luks keys on suspend and reacquire them on resume now. Its called go-luks-suspend https://github.com/guns/go-luks-suspend https://github.com/guns/go-luks-suspend It works as long as suspend does.