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For me it was the scope creep. Systemd is turning "init" into a framework of all the vulnerable and bad ideas that Microsoft moved away from after Win95/XP. b

For me it was the scope creep. Systemd is turning "init" into a framework of all the vulnerable and bad ideas that Microsoft moved away from after Win95/XP. binfmt mount, intercepting and changing the behavior of DNS, polkit implementation, changing user authentication, so much more than I could put here. There are many desktop concepts being shimmed into servers that are simply not appropriate for a lean mean web machine. The good bits that systemd brought into the mainstream such as cgroups and lxc do not require systemd. They can be implemented independently. The watchdog timers and unit files were not a new concept either and did not require systemd.

barbecue_sauce 7y ago
Is it correct to even say that systemd "brought" cgroups and lxc? They seem like fairly independent projects.
- simcop2387 7y ago
  systemd did bring them mainstream, but yea cgroups were around for years before systemd was a thing. But they were mostly independently managed by some small daemons that did things based off rules and other things like that mostly. Systemd changed how they got used, primarily because multiple management systems working with them tends to cause issues, but using them for low impact isolation and tracking of daemons automatically really turned them from something you'd independently setup to something that brings a lot of utility for just about every use-case everywhere. You can still use cgroups independently with systemd, but it's recommended that you use a service and the delegate option to have systemd create a cgroup hierarchy and also know that it shouldn't mess with it after creating it. This lets you have your cake and eat it too if you have a case that systemd doesn't handle (I'm working on a setup with this myself for a coding sandbox setup).
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    I think Docker had a bigger influence on cgroup use than systemd.
    - aidenn0 7y ago
      I disagree because everybody who uses Ubuntu is using systemd, but only a fraction of them use docker.
      - geggam 7y ago
        Ubuntu uses snaps heavily bringing cgroups to play.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  I agree with you and edited my wording.
thayne 7y ago
> Systemd is turning "init" into a framework of ... This is conflating the systemd project and they systemd init system. Most of the things you mention are seperate systems (systemd-resolved,logind, polkit, etc.) that are part of the systemd project and interoperate with the systemd init system, but are not part of the init system itself.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  Agreed and the conflation is somewhat intentional. When you install a system, you get all of that. Custom kickstart files can strip away some of it. For the longest time, you would get polkit regardless. The rpm spec file was changed about a year or two ago so that it can be removed if someone did not exclude it specifically. To be fair, each OS maintainer is including or excluding bits of systemd in the default configurations, so that is not entirely systemd's responsibility. Every year systemd appears to be subsuming more and more system functionality.

barbecue_sauce 7y ago

Is it correct to even say that systemd "brought" cgroups and lxc? They seem like fairly independent projects.

simcop2387 7y ago
systemd did bring them mainstream, but yea cgroups were around for years before systemd was a thing. But they were mostly independently managed by some small daemons that did things based off rules and other things like that mostly. Systemd changed how they got used, primarily because multiple management systems working with them tends to cause issues, but using them for low impact isolation and tracking of daemons automatically really turned them from something you'd independently setup to something that brings a lot of utility for just about every use-case everywhere. You can still use cgroups independently with systemd, but it's recommended that you use a service and the delegate option to have systemd create a cgroup hierarchy and also know that it shouldn't mess with it after creating it. This lets you have your cake and eat it too if you have a case that systemd doesn't handle (I'm working on a setup with this myself for a coding sandbox setup).
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I think Docker had a bigger influence on cgroup use than systemd.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    I disagree because everybody who uses Ubuntu is using systemd, but only a fraction of them use docker.
    - geggam 7y ago
      Ubuntu uses snaps heavily bringing cgroups to play.
LinuxBender 7y ago
I agree with you and edited my wording.

thayne 7y ago

> Systemd is turning "init" into a framework of ... This is conflating the systemd project and they systemd init system. Most of the things you mention are seperate systems (systemd-resolved,logind, polkit, etc.) that are part of the systemd project and interoperate with the systemd init system, but are not part of the init system itself.

LinuxBender 7y ago
Agreed and the conflation is somewhat intentional. When you install a system, you get all of that. Custom kickstart files can strip away some of it. For the longest time, you would get polkit regardless. The rpm spec file was changed about a year or two ago so that it can be removed if someone did not exclude it specifically. To be fair, each OS maintainer is including or excluding bits of systemd in the default configurations, so that is not entirely systemd's responsibility. Every year systemd appears to be subsuming more and more system functionality.