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> On the whole, Debian administration is a lot more complicated than on Arch because of the relative complexity of the architecture. This should be expected th

> On the whole, Debian administration is a lot more complicated than on Arch because of the relative complexity of the architecture. This should be expected though. Debian has been around a lot longer and is depended on by more of the Linux world. Complexity is a natural outcome of more stakeholder requirements (more stakeholders = more requirements = more complexity). I won't get into the systemd holy war, but suffice to say that comparing the architecture of init scripts vs systemd is like comparing the design of a bicycle to a car. One most definitely is more complex than the other, but whether that's a good thing or not depends on what you want to do with it.

kijin 5y ago
It's okay to ride a bicycle instead of a car, or vice versa. It's not okay to put bicycle tires on a car, or a car transmission on a bicycle. I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. If they really want to support both "/etc/init.d/servicename start" and "systemctl start servicename" commands, one should be turned into an empty shell that simply invokes the other, like what Red Hat did with the "service" command. The current system kinda works out of the box, but goes out of sync as soon as you try to customize either the init script or the unit file.
- andrewshadura 5y ago
  In fact, init scripts are only used by systemd when there are no corresponding native unit files.
  - kijin 5y ago
    A lot of debian packages supply both systemd unit files and init scripts. You can use either to step on the other's foot.
    - andrewshadura 5y ago
      As I said, init scripts are only used if there's no unit file. If there's a systemd unit, the init script is ignored.
      - kijin 5y ago
        If there's a systemd unit, the init script is redundant, confusing, and possibly dangerous. It should not exist in the first place, perhaps except as a thin wrapper around the corresponding systemd command.
        seba_dos1 5y ago
        If the package maintainer wants to support systemd-less systems out there, I don't see a reason to not let them to.
        mst 5y ago
        Having that support come in the form of installing both on all systems does have its downsides though. OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if every other feasible approach's downsides are widely regarded to be worse. Software. Yay :D
        yrro 5y ago
        If you invoke the init script on a system booted with systems then it does indeed wrap the equivalent systemctl command.
- bscphil 5y ago
  > I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. Well said. I'd add that "service" is actually doubly confusing because the command was IIRC actually introduced by Ubuntu when they were doing Upstart, which was their own attempt an an init replacement. Ubuntu still has the service command, actually, and now it supposedly runs both init scripts and systemd units. I've never actually tried it because I'm rather spooked by having multiple mechanisms to activate a service. It still mostly has the upstart command syntax from what I can recall. My Ubuntu server actually has a Upstart service file from one of the daemons I have installed, I only hope it's not somehow being activated or translated into an init script by some compatibility system Ubuntu has built in. You might even be talking about RHEL 6, in which they used Upstart, and not whatever they're doing now. RHEL 6 is still under extended support, which means that there are still quite a lot of Upstart systems out there.
  - kijin 5y ago
    I was actually talking about RHEL 7, which uses systemd. When you type "service foo restart", it redirects to "systemctl restart foo.service" and prints a message saying so. It's a nice way to nudge people to use the new command without being obtuse, redundant, or confusing.
- swiley 5y ago
  Gentoo seems to manage.

kijin 5y ago

It's okay to ride a bicycle instead of a car, or vice versa. It's not okay to put bicycle tires on a car, or a car transmission on a bicycle. I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. If they really want to support both "/etc/init.d/servicename start" and "systemctl start servicename" commands, one should be turned into an empty shell that simply invokes the other, like what Red Hat did with the "service" command. The current system kinda works out of the box, but goes out of sync as soon as you try to customize either the init script or the unit file.

andrewshadura 5y ago
In fact, init scripts are only used by systemd when there are no corresponding native unit files.
- kijin 5y ago
  A lot of debian packages supply both systemd unit files and init scripts. You can use either to step on the other's foot.
  - andrewshadura 5y ago
    As I said, init scripts are only used if there's no unit file. If there's a systemd unit, the init script is ignored.
    - kijin 5y ago
      If there's a systemd unit, the init script is redundant, confusing, and possibly dangerous. It should not exist in the first place, perhaps except as a thin wrapper around the corresponding systemd command.
      - seba_dos1 5y ago
        If the package maintainer wants to support systemd-less systems out there, I don't see a reason to not let them to.
        mst 5y ago
        Having that support come in the form of installing both on all systems does have its downsides though. OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if every other feasible approach's downsides are widely regarded to be worse. Software. Yay :D
      - yrro 5y ago
        If you invoke the init script on a system booted with systems then it does indeed wrap the equivalent systemctl command.
bscphil 5y ago
> I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. Well said. I'd add that "service" is actually doubly confusing because the command was IIRC actually introduced by Ubuntu when they were doing Upstart, which was their own attempt an an init replacement. Ubuntu still has the service command, actually, and now it supposedly runs both init scripts and systemd units. I've never actually tried it because I'm rather spooked by having multiple mechanisms to activate a service. It still mostly has the upstart command syntax from what I can recall. My Ubuntu server actually has a Upstart service file from one of the daemons I have installed, I only hope it's not somehow being activated or translated into an init script by some compatibility system Ubuntu has built in. You might even be talking about RHEL 6, in which they used Upstart, and not whatever they're doing now. RHEL 6 is still under extended support, which means that there are still quite a lot of Upstart systems out there.
- kijin 5y ago
  I was actually talking about RHEL 7, which uses systemd. When you type "service foo restart", it redirects to "systemctl restart foo.service" and prints a message saying so. It's a nice way to nudge people to use the new command without being obtuse, redundant, or confusing.
swiley 5y ago
Gentoo seems to manage.